Seaway Oil Pipeline
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The Seaway Crude Pipeline System (SCPS), commonly known as the Seaway Pipeline, is an oil pipeline in the United States. It consists of both the 400,000 barrel per day (bpd) Seaway Pipeline and a 450,000 bpd parallel pipeline, Seaway Twin Pipeline.[1]
Contents
Location
The pipeline system runs from Cushing, Oklahoma to Jones Creek, Texas, and then east to the ECHO Terminal near Houston and terminating in Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas.
Project Details
- Operator: Enterprise Products Partners (50%), Enbridge (50%)[1]
- Current capacity: 850,000 barrels per day
- Proposed capacity:
- Length: 805 kilometers (500 miles)
- Status: Operating
- Start Year: 1976
Background
The Seaway system includes 500-mile, 30-inch diameter pipelines between Cushing, Oklahoma and the Freeport, Texas area, and a terminal and distribution network in Texas City, Texas, that serves refineries in the Greater Houston area. It consists of both the 400,000 barrel per day (bpd) Seaway Pipeline and a 450,000 bpd parallel pipeline, Seaway Twin Pipeline.[1]
The Seaway system is currently adding drag reducing agents to boost capacity on the Seaway 2 Pipeline.[1]
Ownership
Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC (Seaway) is a 50/50 joint venture between Enterprise Products Partners L.P., the operator, and Enbridge Inc., which purchased its ownership interest from ConocoPhillips on November 16, 2011.[1]
History
The Seaway Pipeline was originally built by a consortium of oil industry firms (Phillips Petroleum Company, among others) formed in 1974 named Seaway Pipeline, Inc. for transferring (then) cheap foreign oil from Texas ports to refineries in the midwest. After two years of construction, the system became operational on 23 November 1976, and pumped crude oil north until 1982, when it became inactive at times as the economics of crude transfer changed.[2]
In 1984, the other consortium members were bought out by Phillips. Seeking to capitalize on the line's location to gather raw natural gas in Oklahoma and Texas for transport to the company's refinery complex at Sweeny, Texas, (and other refineries near Houston) Phillips converted the system to ship natural gas south instead of shipping crude oil north (Phillips called that arrangement the "Seagas Pipeline").[2]
In 1995, Atlantic Richfield bought a 50% interest from Conoco through a subsidiary (ARCO Pipeline), and the system was converted from shipping natural gas south to shipping oil north to Cushing in 1996.
In 2000, Texas Eastern Products Pipeline Company (TEPP or TEPPCO), an indirect subsidiary of Duke Energy through TEPPCO Partners, bought the stock of ARCO Pipeline, acquiring their 50% interest in the system, and became primary operator.[3]
In 2005, Texas Eastern Products Pipeline, was acquired by Enterprise Products Partners L.P. in 2005, and Enterprise Products became the system operator with a 50% stake.[4]
In late 2011, Canadian pipeline company Enbridge bought Conoco's remaining 50% interest in the company for $1.15 billion. The Seaway Crude Pipeline Company LLC (joint venture between Enterprise Products and Enbridge) became the pipeline's operator.[5]
In late May 2012, the Seaway's flow was reversed, and crude began arriving at Freeport on 6 June 2012.[6][7]
After the reversal the pipeline's capacity increased from 150,000 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).[8]
A new pipeline, which parallels the existing Seaway pipeline, more than doubled its capacity to 850,000 bpd following completion in July, 2014. It is known as the Seaway Twin pipeline.[1]
The Seaway reversal and expansion projects have given shippers access to Enterprise's ECHO crude oil storage facility in southeast Houston and the Port Arthur/Beaumont refining complex.[1]
Oil spill
On January 30, 2017, a road crew punctured the Seaway pipeline. Two days later, it was unclear how much oil had spilled, although 4,000 barrels of oil (168,000 gallons) had been recovered, according to Texas Railroad Commission. After the incident, supply concerns reportedly helped push "oil prices 2% higher in early trading to nearly $54 a barrel."[9][10]
Articles and resources
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Seaway Oil Pipeline, Seaway Pipeline website, accessed September 2017 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "source1" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bazin, G.L (1 Feb 1986). "The Seagas pipeline". Pipeline Gas Journal 213 (2). Retrieved on 27 December 2012.
- ↑ Wostmann, Alexander. Duke acquires Arco Pipe Line. Alexander’s Gas & Oil Connections. Retrieved on 27 December 2012.
- ↑ FTC Challenges Deal Between Enterprise Products Partners and TEPPCO. U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Retrieved on 27 December 2012.
- ↑ Enbridge buys $1.15B Seaway oil pipeline stake. The Canadian Press. Retrieved on 27 December 2012.
- ↑ Seaway pipeline sends oil to Texas in historic reversal. Reuters. Retrieved on 27 December 2012.
- ↑ Philips, Matthew. Unlocking the Crude Oil Bottleneck at Cushing. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved on 1 January 2013.
- ↑ "Oil price jumps as Seaway pipeline launches" (14 January 2013). Retrieved on 19 January 2013.
- ↑ "Shutdown of Texas Pipeline Boosting Oil Prices," Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2017
- ↑ "Blue Ridge pipeline spill affecting flow of oil nationally," KXII News 12, Jan 30, 2017
Related SourceWatch articles
External resources
External articles
Wikipedia also has an article on Seaway Oil Pipeline. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.
