Biden Quietly Approved 2 Million Bpd Texas Oil Terminal
Even though the Biden administration has a strong anti-oil position, it approved a new oil export terminal for the Texas Gulf Coast. It will be the largest piece of oil export infrastructure in the country.
While the new terminal will add approximately 2 million barrels per day of new export capacity, the news received little public notice, and the project was approved quietly, according to the Texas Tribune.
The approval comes amid suggestions from Democrats in Congress that the U.S. should curb oil exports to secure local supply.
The Tribune said that the project's approval was filed at the beginning of the week, following the conclusion of the COP27 climate summit. The regulatory approval of the Sea Port Oil Terminal, on the other hand, did not go unnoticed.
"President Biden can't be a leader in fighting climate change, protecting public health, or fighting for environmental justice while letting fossil fuel companies lock in decades of fossil fuel extraction," said the senior policy advocate for a climate nonprofit called Earthworks.
In an earlier story, however, the Houston Chronicle said that regulatory approval does not mean that construction will happen.
According to the news outlet, if built, the Sea Port Oil Terminal would be the first of four projects proposed in 2019 to come to fruition. The purpose of these efforts was to improve the efficiency of oil loading and lower transportation costs.
"It's good to see that the Maritime Administration sees how much better SPOT is for the environment and for maritime safety than the way things are done now," said Enterprise Products Partners, the company that built the Sea Port Oil Terminal.
The project includes building a terminal in Surfside, about 30 miles south of Freeport, as well as a pipeline that will move oil from the regional network of Enterprise Products Partners to the offshore facility. The new terminal will make it much easier to load larger tankers that normal Gulf Coast ports cannot accommodate.
Source: OilPrice.com
