Enterprise Products launches export terminal expansion

Houston’s Enterprise Products Partners said it is starting construction on the expansion of a Houston Ship Channel export terminal so it can ship more propane and butane.

Enterprise bought 65 acres earlier this year, and the expansion is expected to cost less than $50 million.

Enterprise said it will be able to load six Very Large Gas Carrier vessels simultaneously once the expansion is completed in the second half of 2019.

The project will allow the Enterprise Hydrocarbon Terminal to load an additional 175,000 barrels of liquefied petroleum gas — primarily propane and butane — per day, or about 5 million barrels a month. The expansion will increase the terminal’s liquid propane gas export capacity to 720,000 barrels daily, or 21 million barrels a month. That growth will allow Enterprise to load a Very Large Gas Carrier, which holds about 2.5 million cubic feet of gas, in less than 24 hours.

Enterprise is already the world’s largest propane exporter. U.S. propane and butane production easily exceeds U.S. demand, prompting the need for greater export volumes, Enterprise Chief Executive Jim Teague said.

Natural gas liquids such as ethane, propane and butane — much of it used as petrochemical feedstocks — are produced along with oil and gas. So, as the U.S. energy companies churn out record volumes of oil and natural gas, they are also producing a flood of natural gas liquids.

Without foreign markets to help absorb that flood, oil and gas producers would likely slow oil and natural gas production, rather than be stuck with large volumes of a product they can’t sell.

“Marine terminal expansions like ours will be essential to balancing the market and meeting growing global demand for U.S. hydrocarbons,” Teague said.