February 4, 2012 [OPIS] - Enterprise Product Partners expects to have its expanded natural gas liquids (NGLs) export facility at Oiltanking along the Houston Ship Channel come online by mid-February, company officials said during an earnings conference call.
They said there has been a delay in its startup and this partly contributed to weakness in the regional propane market. The incremental export capacity was to have become available from Feb. 1.
But once that extra export capacity becomes available, propane prices should firm up, they said.
Enterprise has already placed targeted volumes from the NGL export facility but it has purposely left capacity available for spot sales as well as operational difficulties.
Overall however, Enterprise expects to export over 60 million barrels of NGLs this year compared with last year’s volume of 40 million barrels, they said.
Last week OPIS reported that Enterprise’s NGL export facility was expected to see a capacity boost sometime in February.
The original completion target for this project was set for end-January with a startup of Feb. 1. But bad weather in December and earlier this month had held back some of the work. Sources said the incremental capacity may become available before mid-February.
The impending new loading capacity of 12,000 barrels per hour of propane would be nearly double the current capacity of 6,700 barrels per hour.
