By Arathy Somasekhar
HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. energy pipeline operator Enterprise Products is not considering adding a new crude oil line out of the Permian shale field in West Texas, co-CEO Jim Teague said on Thursday.
A wave of consolidation in the top U.S. shale field has concentrated output in the hands of companies that are promising to restrain output so as not to crash prices by overproducing.
Teague also said that Enterprise continues to advance its proposed deepwater oil export project, Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), but “nobody wants to be (the) first” customer to sign up.
Multi-year regulatory delays, a loss of commercial backers and slowing U.S. shale oil production growth has SPOT and three rival offshore oil-export projects struggling.
A change in crude flows as many Western nations banned imports of Russian crude after the country’s invasion of Ukraine, pushing Russian oil to flow to Asia, also has undercut the outlook for U.S. deepwater export projects that can load supertanker directly.
“Things have changed, but my gut feeling is that we’ll be able to get SPOT across the finish line,” Teague said while speaking at an RBN Energy conference in Houston.
(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar, editing by Franklin Paul)
