Americas News
Kinder Morgan Expanding Houston Ship Channel Operations
As output from the Eagle Ford shale oil play in Texas grows, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. [NYSE:KMP] (Kinder Morgan) says it will spend $106 million to expand its storage capacity and build a new barge dock at the Houston Ship Channel.
The project includes building nine new tanks with a storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels under long-term customer agreements and building a new barge dock that will provide extra capacity to handle up to 50 barges per month.
The company is also buying 20 acres of land next to its terminal in Pasadena, Texas, where it will eventually add a crude condensate and refined products terminal that can handle 10 150,000-barrel tanks.
"We are excited to add this new infrastructure that will enhance the largest petroleum storage facility in North America benefiting both our base and new customers," said John Schlosser, president of Kinder Morgan Terminals.
The planned crude condensate and refined products terminal will connect to the company's Explorer Pipeline.
Since last June, Kinder Morgan has operated a 300,000 barrel per day (bpd) crude and condensate pipeline to move output from Eagle Ford to the Houston Ship Channel, and it said earlier this month that it will expand its Sweeney Lateral pipeline to bring 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and condensate from Eagle Ford to Phillip 66's refinery in Sweeny, Texas, according to a Reuters report.
