Categories: Economy

Sentinel Midstream eyes ultimate funding choice for US oil export undertaking

By Arathy Somasekhar

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Oil transportation and storage firm Sentinel Midstream expects to make a ultimate funding choice on its deepwater oil export undertaking off the Texas coast as quickly because it receives a U.S. authorities license, CEO Jeff Ballard advised Reuters.

The transfer comes as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for quicker approvals of initiatives that may assist bolster the U.S. vitality trade, together with fossil gas manufacturing.

As a part of that push, Sentinel’s Texas GulfLink undertaking was issued a document of choice, a significant step within the allowing course of, on Friday by the Trump administration.

The document of choice accepted the undertaking with situations. Sentinel should meet state and federal and different necessities to obtain a license to start development.

The offshore undertaking, anticipated to be located about 30.5 miles off Freeport, Texas, goals to have the ability to totally load a supertanker with about 2 million barrels of oil in a day.

At present just one U.S. port, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, can totally load supertankers. Different amenities can solely load a supertanker partially on account of draft restrictions, requiring them to make use of smaller ships to ferry crude to the bigger vessel to fill it.

“If business discussions proceed as we count on them to, then our ultimate funding choice timeline ought to coincide with the receipt of the license,” Ballard mentioned in an interview on Wednesday. He declined to offer a particular timeline.

The final U.S. deepwater undertaking, Enterprise Merchandise Companions’ Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), took simply over 17 months from document of choice to license below the administration of former president Joe Biden, which was much less supportive of vitality improvement than the Trump administration.

“The situations within the document of choice are fairly clear and simple, nothing was stunning, which is nice,” Ballard mentioned.

Sentinel’s upbeat outlook comes days after rival Enterprise mentioned it had not obtained sufficient buyer curiosity to commercialize its SPOT crude export undertaking, blaming regulatory delays and a shift in international oil flows after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. crude exports additionally eased for the primary time final 12 months because the COVID-19 pandemic, elevating considerations that the nation’s oil export volumes could have peaked.

The comparatively low whole undertaking price of Texas GulfLink offers it an financial benefit to supply aggressive charges and time period flexibility to prospects, Ballard mentioned. He declined to reveal the estimated undertaking price.

Costs for exporting from Texas GulfLink will seemingly even be aggressive with amenities in Ingleside close to Corpus Christi in South Texas, Ballard mentioned. Corpus Christi is at the moment the highest U.S. oil export area.

“We sort of view Corpus Christi export amenities as a separate market. We do not imagine it is an us versus them. We see the longer term the place it is us with them,” Ballard mentioned.

DRILL, BABY, EXPORT

Whereas Trump has referred to as for larger oil manufacturing, vitality executives have forecast slowing development as they deal with capital self-discipline, which might affect the provision of export volumes.

Ballard, nonetheless, mentioned he was bullish on manufacturing development.

“The brand new administration is being very robust on American vitality dominance and placing that as considered one of their core focal factors – I feel that’s to our profit,” Ballard mentioned.

“You are going to see extra certainty out there in direction of making long-term investments in American oil and fuel,” he added.

Ballard additionally mentioned he expects to see some U.S. crude oil flows shift to Asia because the administration works to resolve the battle between Russia and Ukraine.

Asia’s share of U.S. crude exports declined to 38% in 2024 from 43% in 2019 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions on Russian oil pushed U.S. barrels to Europe. Crude to Europe may be shipped economically in smaller tankers, whereas elevated demand from Asia would result in larger utilization of supertankers, focused by Texas GulfLink.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Enhancing by Liz Hampton and Nia Williams)

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