Enterprise Products Partners LP, through its subsidiary M2E4 LLC, entered long-term agreements for the further expansion of its Midland to ECHO crude oil pipeline system.
Enterprise would build a 450,000-barrel-per-day pipeline that would connect the company's 6-million-barrel Texas storage facility to the ECHO terminal, according to an Oct. 4 news release. The pipeline could be expanded up to 540,000 bbl/d. Enterprise expected the pipeline to optimize operations on its Midland to ECHO system and save the company up to $60 million annually. The new pipeline is scheduled to start service in the first half of 2021.
The expansion would also help Enterprise's existing Seminole Red pipeline switch between crude oil and natural gas liquids transportation service. The company converted the pipeline to crude oil service earlier in 2019, but because the company expects NGL production in the Permian Basin to increase by over 50% by 2025, the company plans to convert it back to NGL service during the second half of 2021. The company expected the conversion process to take less than 60 days.
"Crude oil and NGL production from the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford is expected to increase by five million BPD by 2025," A.J. Teague, CEO of Enterprise's general partner, said in the statement. "This project gives us the flexibility to respond to changing customer demand for crude oil and NGL pipeline capacity over the long term."
Enterprise's Houston-based crude oil transportation system, which connects to every refinery around the Houston and Port Arthur area, includes over 45 million barrels of storage and approximately 4 million bbl/d of export capacity from the company's network of marine terminals.
