Exxon Mobil adds to Permian push

Exxon Mobil has purchased an oil terminal in the Delaware Basin, the latest move in the oil major’s push into one of the world’s most prodcutive oil fields.

Exxon Mobil Corp., whose headquarters is in Irving, bought the terminal, its first in the region, from Houston midstream firm Genesis Energy for an undisclosed amount, it said this past week.

The terminal in Wink, about 75 miles west of Midland, can handle 100,000 barrels a day and crude through pipelines to Gulf Coast refineries and export terminals, and it was designed to expand its capacity as the region’s oil production increases.

“The terminal provides crude producers with a full range of logistical options including truck, rail and inbound and outbound pipeline access, not only for Exxon Mobil’s production, but for all Permian Basin producers,” Gerald Frey, president of the company’s pipeline unit, said in a statement.

The purchase comes on the heels of Exxon Mobil’s acquisition of 22,000 acres in the Permian Basin, where the company has dispatched 19 drilling rigs across 250,000 acres in the Delaware Basin and 130,000 acres in the nearby Midland Basin in West Texas. In January, the company doubled its Permian holdings with a $5.6 billion purchase of 275,000 acres from BOPCO and other companies owned by the Bass family of Fort Worth.

The Permian is attractive to big oil companies because it is far cheaper to develop than deep-water fields at a time when oil prices remain low, with little prospect of them climbing sharply over the next year or so. Exxon Mobil and Chevron, which have long focused investments offshore, have poured billions into the Permian.

In a decade, both companies project that U.S. shale oil production will make up a quarter of their global output.