Kinder Morgan joint venture to build deepwater crude export off Texas coast

A proposed joint venture between Enbridge, Kinder Morgan, and Oiltanking is looking to construct and operate a deepwater crude oil export port located off the coast of Freeport, Texas.

The joint venture, called Texas Colt, submitted an application with the U.S. Maritime Administration last week.

The Texas Colt project includes an offshore platform and two single point mooring buoys capable of fully loading a 2-million-barrel crude carrier in approximately 24 hours. The offshore facilities will be connected by a 42” pipeline to an onshore tank farm that will have up to 15 million barrels of storage capacity.

Pending approvals, the Texas Colt is estimated to be in-service by 2022.

Enbridge is an energy infrastructure company that serves approximately 3.7 million retail customers in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, Canada. It has a network of crude oil, liquids and natural gas pipelines, regulated natural gas distribution utilities and renewable power generation. The company delivers an average of 2.9 million barrels of crude oil each day and accounts for approximately 62 percent of U.S.-bound Canadian crude oil exports. It moves approximately 22 percent of all natural gas consumed in the United States.

Kinder Morgan is an energy infrastructure company that owns or operates approximately 84,000 miles of pipelines and 157 terminals. The pipelines transport natural gas, refined petroleum products, crude oil, condensate, CO2 and other products. KM’s terminals transload and store liquid commodities including petroleum products, ethanol and chemicals, and bulk products, including petroleum coke, metals, and ores.

Oiltanking — a subsidiary of Hamburg-based Marquard & Bahls – is an independent tank storage provider for petroleum products, chemicals, and gases worldwide. The company owns and operates 73 terminals in 24 countries within Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, India, and the Asia-Pacific region.