Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 14 2021

NorthAmOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT NorthAmOil

Max Midstream preparing

to start crude exports

TEXAS GULF US-BASED Max Midstream is preparing to to access the port as well.
COAST begin crude exports from Texas soon, as it Edwards’ latest comments come as crude
brings a new terminal into service at the Port of exports from other Gulf Coast hubs are also
Calhoun. booming. In March, it was reported that the
This week, S&P Global Platts quoted Max’s Port of Corpus Christi broke volume records at
founder and president, Todd Edwards, as saying the end of 2020, taking more than a 55% market
his company would send a test shipment from share of all US crude exports.
its new terminal to Port Arthur, also in Texas, However, exports from Corpus Christi may
in early April. This will be followed by exports dip in 2021 as rival ports rebound from the coro- Max is aiming
beginning in May. navirus (COVID-19) pandemic, especially if
Max is aiming to establish a new Texas crude global oil demand remains relatively weak. to establish a
export hub that is located between Houston and Corpus Christi’s crude exports grew from
Corpus Christi, with the purpose of exporting just about 500,000 barrels per day in early 2019 new Texas crude
crude primarily to Europe even as larger com- to more than 1.3mn bpd at the end of 2020 as
petitors focus on shipping oil to Asia. Indeed, new oil pipeline capacity from the Permian export hub that is
Max recently opened a Geneva-based trading Basin came online. As a result of the pandemic, located between
office, and its first shipment in May is due to go the port’s crude exports dropped from a high of
to Northwest Europe. 1.5mn bpd in February 2020 to 1.2mn bpd in Houston and
Max will initially focus on moving crude April. However, they rebounded strongly by the
and other products sourced from the Eagle end of the year, rising to a new record high of Corpus Christi.
Ford shale, at a rate of around 4mn barrels per more than 1.9mn bpd in December.
month. In the longer term, capacity is antici- However, the Port of Corpus Christi’s CEO,
pated to expand to 20mn barrels per month, Sean Strawbridge, was quoted as saying that
with the completion of dredging and widening his port’s resilience had come at the expense of
work scheduled for 2023, allowing the port to other export outlets that did not prove to be as
accommodate Aframax and Suezmax-class efficient during the worst of the first wave of the
tankers. pandemic.
Max also announced previously that it And now, Corpus Christi can expect rising
had reached an agreement with Phillips 66 to competition from the Port of Houston and the
connect the Gray Oak pipeline to the Port of Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which are
Calhoun, which will allow Permian producers both seeing pipeline capacity additions.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 14 08•April•2021