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Oil Terminal News

10 Apr 2024

Enterprise Products Gets Port License for Gulf of Mexico Oil Terminal

Proposed SPOT export terminal - Credit: Enterprise Products Partners

Enterprise Products Partners said on Tuesday it had received a deepwater port license for its Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) in the Gulf of Mexico from an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation.The project, located near Freeport, Texas, would become the biggest offshore oil export terminal in the U.S. after completion with a capacity to load two supertankers at a time and export 2 million barrels of crude oil per day."The receipt of the license is the most significant milestone to date in the development and commercialization of SPOT…

05 Mar 2024

Turkish Oil Terminal Halts Russian Oil Business

© Kalyakan / Adobe Stock

One of Turkey's mid-sized Mediterranean oil terminals - the Dortyol terminal - will no longer accept Russian imports after receiving record volumes last year, amid an increase in sanctions pressure by the United States.Turkey has become one of the biggest importers of Russian crude and fuel since 2022, after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Russia responded by re-routing oil away from Europe and the U.S. to Asia, Turkey and Africa.Global Terminal Services' (GTS)…

29 Jan 2024

Russian Oil Facilities Hit by Drone Attacks, Fires

© evannovostro / Adobe Stock

Russia energy infrastructure has been hit by drone attacks and fires in the past month, adding to uncertainty in global oil and gas markets already rocked by the conflict in the Middle East.Russia and Ukraine have targeted each other's energy infrastructure in strikes designed to disrupt supply lines and logistics and to demoralise their opponent as they try to get the edge in a nearly two-year-old war that shows no sign of ending.Following are recent major incidents at Russian oil facilities in the past month:* A Russian appointed official said on Jan.

21 Jan 2024

Drone Attack: Russia Suspends Operations at Ust-Luga

© grigvovan / Adobe Stock

Russian energy company Novatek said on Sunday it had been forced to suspend some operations at a huge Baltic Sea fuel export terminal due to a fire started by what Ukrainian media said was a drone attack.The giant Ust-Luga complex, located on the Gulf of Finland about 170 km (110 miles) west of St. Petersburg, is used to ship oil and gas products to international markets. It processes stable gas condensate - a type of light oil - into light and heavy naphtha, kerosene and diesel to be shipped by sea.It was not clear how long the disruption would last…

09 Oct 2023

Israel's Ashkelon Port Shut Down

© Vita / Adobe Stock

Israel's port of Ashkelon and its oil terminal have been shut in the wake of the conflict between Israel and Islamist group Hamas, shipping and trade sources said on Monday.The port is located just over 10 kilometers (sox miles) from the border with the Gaza Strip.

20 Sep 2023

Tanker Involved in US Seizure of Iran Oil Cargo Changes Name

An oil tanker confiscated by the United States for carrying Iranian oil and diverted to the U.S. Gulf Coast, was headed to the Bahamas on Wednesday under a new name, ship tracking data showed.The tanker Suez Rajan was the subject of attention this year for carrying more than 980,000 barrels of contraband Iranian crude oil, which was confiscated by the U.S. in a sanctions enforcement operation.It was unable to unload the Iranian crude for nearly two and half months over fears of secondary sanctions on vessels used to unload it. It was renamed the St Nikolas after unloading the cargoes.The vessel fully unloaded the Iranian crude this month and the Suez Rajan Ltd company pleaded guilty in April.

04 Aug 2023

Russian Warship Damaged in Ukrainian Attack on Novorossiysk Naval Base

Image for Illustration only - A Russian Navy Ship in Novorossiysk Credit: olgavolodina/AdobeStock

A Russian warship was seriously damaged in an overnight Ukrainian naval drone attack on Russia's Black Sea navy base at Novorossiysk, two sources said on Friday, after Russia said it had fended off the attack.The civilian port, which handles 2% of the world's oil supply and also exports grain, temporarily halted all ship movement before resuming normal operations, according to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium which operates an oil terminal there. Russia's Defence Ministry said…

02 Aug 2023

Russia Strikes Port Facilities in Ukraine's Izmail

© Lindasky76 / Adobe Stock

Russian state news agency RIA said overnight Russian strikes on the Ukrainian port of Izmail had hit port and grain infrastructure housing foreign mercenaries and military hardware, as well as a naval ship repair yard.RIA cited Sergei Lebedev, a man it described as a coordinator of an underground group in the Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv and who it said had sources in Izmail, Ukraine's main inland port across the Danube River from Romania.It quoted Lebedev as saying that there had been eight separate Russian strikes on Izmail and that an oil terminal had been hit…

09 Jun 2023

Enterprise Products Partners' Offshore Oil Export Terminal to Open by Early 2027

Proposed SPOT export terminal - Credit: Enterprise Products Partners

Enterprise Products Partners' Sea Port crude oil export terminal off the coast of Texas could begin operations between the second half of 2026 and early 2027, the pipeline operator's co-CEO said on Thursday. The terminal, planned for about 30 miles (48 km) off the coast of Texas, is one of several deepwater projects proposed at the height of the U.S. shale oil production boom. Enterprise Co-CEO Jim Teague disclosed the proposed Sea Port Oil Terminal's start date at an RBN Energy export conference in Houston.

01 May 2023

Crimea Oil Terminal Set Ablaze by Drone Attack

For illustration only © burnstuff2003 / Adobe Stock

A Ukrainian drone strike set ablaze a Russian fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol early on Saturday, sending a vast column of black smoke into the sky in the latest attack on the Russia-occupied peninsula.The city's Moscow-installed governor blamed Ukraine and later said the fire had been put out before a disaster occurred.A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 tanks of oil products with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes intended for use by Russia's Black Sea Fleet were destroyed…

13 Mar 2023

Venezuela to Ship Fuel to Cuba on US-blacklisted Supertanker

© Igor Groshev / Adobe Stock

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA on Monday was loading a supertanker with crude and fuel for Cuba, maritime documents showed, an unusually large volume to help its political ally overcome an energy crisis with repeated blackouts.Several big electrical outages this year have left many in Cuba concerned about power supplies this summer, when residents crank up air conditioning to stay cool in the Caribbean heat.Cuban officials have blamed the intermittent power on difficulties processing heavy sour Cuban crude and fuel shortages on the island…

10 Mar 2023

UN Buys Tanker to Store Oil from Decaying Vessel off Yemen

The FSO Safer, moored off Yemen's west coast (Photo: UNRCO Yemen)

The United Nations has purchased a large tanker to store about 1.1 million barrels of oil that will be transferred from a decaying vessel off Yemen's coast in a bid to avert an environmental disaster, officials said on Thursday.U.N. officials have been warning for several years that the Red Sea and the coastline of Yemen was at risk as the Safer tanker could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.But the top U.N. official in Yemen, David Gressly…

21 Feb 2023

Equinor Sells Its Oil Terminal in the Bahamas

(Photo: Equinor)

Norwegian energy company Equinor announced it has entered into an agreement to sell its oil terminal in the Bahamas to Estonian logistics and investment business Liwathon. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.The South Riding Point oil terminal at the Grand Bahama Island, commissioned in 1973 was purchased by Equinor in 2009 to enable the company to trade oil primarily originating from the American markets. The facility comprises 10 large storage tanks with a capacity of 6.8 million barrels (1…

13 Feb 2023

First Azeri Oil Leaves Turkey's Ceyhan Since Quakes

The Nordlotus sailed from Turkey's Ceyhan oil export hub loaded with Azeri crude on Monday, the first such shipment since earthquakes hit the region on Feb. 6, ship-tracking data showed and a trading source said.The tanker carried 682,500 barrels of oil and began loading on Feb. 12, Turkish state energy company BOTAS said in a statement on Monday.The Alfa Baltica was also shown at a jetty at the Botas Ceyhan oil terminal on Monday and was loading Azeri crude, the trade source said.The earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria halted operations at Ceyhan, which receives crude supplies from northern Iraq and Azerbaijan.Loading of Azeri oil at Ceyhan resumed on Sunday, a spokeswoman for BP said. The company declared force majeure on loadings of Azeri crude from Ceyhan on Feb.

17 Jan 2023

Venezuela's PDVSA Freezes Most Oil Exports for Contract Reviews

© poonsit / Adobe Stock

The new head of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA has suspended most oil export contracts while his team reviews them in a move to avoid payment defaults, according to an internal document seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter.Since U.S. trading sanctions were first imposed on PDVSA in 2019, the company has increasingly resorted to little known middlemen to allocate its oil exports, leading to big price discounts and problems with payments affecting its cashflow.The freeze order is leading to port delays…

05 Jan 2023

Lack of Dredging Could Delay Chevron's Venezuela Oil Exports

© momentscatcher / Adobe Stock

A shipping channel snafu is slowing Chevron Corp’s efforts to load tankers at one of its four Venezuelan joint ventures and bring heavy crude to the United States, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.Washington in November authorized the last major U.S. firm still operating in Venezuela to restore lost output and begin exporting oil as a way to encourage talks between Nicolas Maduro’s government and the country’s political opposition.But a plan to move heavy…

21 Nov 2022

Houthis Attack al-Dhabba Oil Terminal in Yemen

© Nicola / Adobe Stock

Yemen's Houthis attacked al-Dhabba oil terminal in Hadhramaut province on Monday, the group and Yemen's internationally recognized government said.The Iran-aligned Houthis fired a projectile from a drone that landed at the entrance of the terminal, which is located in the town of al-Shihr, two workers at the terminal told Reuters.Panamanian-flagged vessel Pratika had entered the terminal to load a shipment of crude but left after the attack, the workers said.The Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO)…

10 Nov 2022

Yemen's Houthis Increase Pressure with Oil Port Attacks

© James Steidl / Adobe Stock

Yemen's Houthi group is piling on pressure to extract economic gains in U.N.-led talks for an extended truce deal with attacks on oil ports in government-held areas, which officials say have disrupted crude exports, choking state revenues.Yemen's foreign ministry said in a statement that the Houthis launched a drone attack on the southern Qena port in Shabwa on Wednesday. The group's military spokesman said on Twitter that the operation "foiled an attempt to loot" Yemen's oil by preventing a vessel from docking.A joint statement by the U.S.…

19 Sep 2022

Fire Hits Oil Terminal, Tanker in Venezuela

© Vadimsadovski / Adobe Stock

A fire erupted on Saturday at an oil terminal in Venezuela when a hose used for supplying gasoline to a tanker broke lose, the country's oil minister Tareck El Aissami said.The fire, which occurred early on Saturday at one of Guaraguao terminal's berths, located on Venezuela's eastern coast, was extinguished shortly after, but also affected Panama-flagged oil vessel Larko and interrupted the terminal's operations, according to shipping sources.No injuries have been reported.

05 Sep 2022

U.S. EPA Revokes Permit for Phillips-Trafigura Bluewater Offshore Terminal

Credit:Bluewater Texas Terminal,

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has revoked the pollution control permit of Bluewater Texas Terminal, according to a letter sent by the EPA to the offshore oil terminal, following objections from environmental groups.The terminal, jointly developed by refiner Phillips 66 and commodities trader Trafigura, had applied for a Clean Air Act permit in 2019 and received an EPA pollution control license in November 2020 that allowed it to emit almost 19,000 tons of pollutants…

25 Aug 2022

Cuba Boosts Fuel Imports, Reshuffles Shipping Operations After Terminal Fire

Cuba is using a combination of ship-to-ship transfers and floating oil storage to ease fuel scarcity and power cuts following a fire that destroyed a portion of its main oil terminal, vessel tracking data showed.Cubans have endured daily blackouts and long waits for gasoline in the aftermath of the blaze, which hit the 2.4-million-barrel Matanzas terminal and killed 16 people this month.Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel's administration has increased fuel imports from Europe and the Caribbean while Venezuela and Mexico have helped the communist-ruled island with specialized crews and equipment to extinguish the fire, triggered by lightning, and rebuild infrastructure.More than 3 million barrels of Venezuelan crude and fuel, Russian oil, European diesel and liquefied petroleum gas from Domi

24 Aug 2022

Yemen's HSA Pledges $1.2 Million to UN Drive to Avert Tanker Oil Spill

The FSO Safer, moored off Yemen's west coast. (Photo: UNRCO Yemen)

Yemen's HSA Group on Thursday became the first private entity to pledge funds for a United Nations operation to avoid an oil spill from a tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen, as the U.N. urgently tries to secure an initial requirement of $80 million.The international organization, which has so far raised over $60 million, has warned that the Safer, stranded since 2015 off a Red Sea oil terminal, could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster near Alaska.HSA…

12 Aug 2022

Russian Oil Tanker Bound for Fire-ravaged Cuban Terminal Diverts to Smaller Port

Credit: John Verhulst

A cargo of Russian oil bound for Cuba's Matanzas terminal has been diverted to a smaller port, following a spectacular fire that destroyed a large portion of the island's main oil terminal, vessel monitoring data showed on Thursday.Lengthy power blackouts have followed the fatal blaze, which killed one firefighter and left 14 others missing. The outages are a sign of how the accident is aggravating a long-standing energy crisis due to an obsolete power grid and lack of fuel.The Liberia-flagged tanker NS Laguna carrying 700…