Seaway Twin Oil Pipeline Complete
Enterprise Products Partners LP's Seaway Twin pipeline is mechanically complete, but will continue final commissioning through the third quarter, a more prolonged start-up than traders expected.
Enterprise said in June that the 450,000-barrel-per-day expansion, which would move crude from Cushing, Oklahoma, to oil tanks near Houston, would be completed except for final testing within the month.
The pipeline, which more than doubles the capacity of the Seaway system to 850,000 barrels per day, is mechanically complete from Cushing to the Jones Creek facility, Enterprise said. The Houston-based company jointly operates the pipeline with Calgary-based Enbridge Inc..
The Jones Creek facility connects to an Enterprise storage hub in Houston. Construction of a 100-mile 30-inch pipeline from the storage terminal to Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, is expected to be completed in July 2014.
Gulf Coast prices might be boosted, after a glut of oil to the region has pressured prices, as the industry waits for oil to come through the new Seaway line, Sandy Fielden of RBN Energy consultancy said before Enterprise's statement.
The start up of the Twin should put pressure on local grades including Southern Green Canyon WTC-SGC and Mars sour WTC-MRS, both of which have seen modest or sideways movements in the last month, traders said.
When Enbridge's Flanagan South pipeline comes online, currently set for the third quarter, the system will effectively bring more Canadian heavy oil into the Gulf Coast.
(Reporting by Catherine Ngai; writing by Jessica Resnick-Ault)
