They’re ready! It’s the best characterization of oil tankers waiting in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas, ready to arrive and start loading shipments of oil.
More than 55 tankers were lined up earlier this week in the ocean off the coastal refinery cities hard hit by Hurricane Harvey. Those ships were anchored off Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, Freeport, Texas City, Beaumont, Nederland, Port Arthur, Port Neches, Sabine and Lake Charles. Reports indicated they were carrying an estimated total of 38 billion barrels of crude oil.
Operations are quickly returning to near normal as possible at the refineries that had been shut down by the hurricane and the flooding it brought.
Colonial Pipeline Co. restarted some of its operations on Labor Day. On Tuesday, five Gulf Coast refineries were restarting after being closed, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But it will be a slow process and could take days or maybe weeks to start producing product.
The government said the restarting refineries have a combined capacity of 1.55 million barrels a day or 16% of total Gulf coast refining capacity and 8.4% of total U.S. refining capacity. Seven refineries were operating at reduced rates as of midday Sept. 5.
ExxonMobil Corp. had restart activities underway Sept. 5 at its Baytown, Texas refinery. Motiva Enterprises LLC, announced its 600,000 barrel a day refinery in Port Arthur was in the final phases of equipment assessments and initial phases of startup. It anticipates the refinery to be abt 40% production by the end of this weekend.
Valero Energy Corp. said its operations at Corpus Christi and Texas City were at pre-hurricane rates.
The Port of Corpus Christi in Texas fully reopened on Labor Day after a drillship was removed from blocking part of the port. The ship had run aground during the storm after it broke free from its moorings.
Some crude tankers were blocked from making their way into the Houston Ship Channel because of a sunken dry dock in the waterway.
Others that have restarted include Magellan Midstream Partners LP and its two long-haul Texas crude pipelines.
Loadings of ethane, LPG and polymer-grade propylene ships have resumed at the two marine terminals run by Enterprise Product Partners LP.
Also open are the ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston and Texas City as well as Lake Charles in Louisiana.
ConocoPhillips reports its Eagle Ford production is running at nearly 80% of its prestorm rate of 130,000 boe/d.