The first cargo of ethylene has been exported from the 50-50 joint venture marine terminal, at Morgan’s Point, Texas along the Houston Ship Channel, owned by Enterprise Products Partners L.P. and Navigator Holdings Ltd.
In fact, it was recently when the Navigator Europa departed the facility carrying 25 million pounds of ethylene for Marubeni Corporation, a Japanese trading company, and long-term terminal customer.
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The new terminal features two docks and the capacity to load 2.2 billion pounds of ethylene annually.
What is more, a refrigerated storage tank of ethylene is also being built on-site for 66 million pounds and will increase the capability to load ethylene up to a rate of 2.2 million pounds per hour; the tank construction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The export terminal is pipeline-connected to Enterprise’s Mont Belvieu, Texas complex, where the company is in the process of commissioning a high-capacity ethylene salt dome storage well with a capacity of 600 million pounds.
Enterprise has designed the system to serve as an open market storage and trading hub for the ethylene industry through storage, connections to multiple ethylene pipelines and high-capacity export capabilities.
Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise’s general partner, A.J. “Jim” Teague said that “because of abundant natural gas liquids thanks to the shale revolution, the U.S. is now a global leader in ethylene production, with an unprecedented buildout of mostly ethane crackers along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs to local economies,” adding that
Including a second wave of new petrochemical plants now being developed, production of ethylene is poised for continued growth and is expected to exceed 100 billion pounds per year by 2025.
Enterprise is developing its ethylene pipeline and logistics system further into South Texas; a 24-mile pipeline between Mont Belvieu and Bayport, Texas routed through Morgan’s Point is expected to begin service in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Enterprise recently also announced plans to build the 90-mile Baymark Pipeline from Bayport to Markham, Texas, which is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2020.
