"No customers" for Enterprise Products' big US crude export project

Enterprise Products Partners has not received enough customer interest to commercialize its Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) crude export project, Jim Teague, the CEO of the pipeline and storage operator, said on Tuesday.

"In order to build SPOT, we know what we need is volumes, fees and terms... if we can't achieve these within a reasonable amount of time, we will move on," Teague said in a post-earnings conference call.

Enterprise's SPOT in 2022 became the first export terminal project to receive a license from the US maritime regulator for a deepwater port that could load two supertankers, each of which can carry up to two million barrels of oil at a time.

Teague blamed regulatory delays and Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which rerouted oil flows, for the lack of interest in the project, adding that the company will continue to promote SPOT.

The project, one of four planned export facilities, is currently the only one with regulatory permits.

"A lot has changed since we entered our SPOT application in January 2019," Teague said.

Forecasters were predicting US crude exports would climb to between seven million and eight million barrels a day by 2024, and that a majority of those would go to Asia on supertankers, Teague said.

US crude exports averaged around 4.1 million barrels in the first 11 months of 2024, data from the Energy Information Administration showed.

About 47 per cent of US crude exports went to Europe, ship tracking data from Kpler showed, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to higher demand from Europe. Asia's share of US crude exports declined to 38 per cent in 2024 from 43 per cent in 2019.

Crude to Europe can be shipped economically in smaller tankers, while increased demand from Asia would have led to higher usage of supertankers, the type that SPOT targeted for its project.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Paul Simao)