March 23, 2020 [Rigzone] – The Houston-based refined products company SGR Energy reported Wednesday that it is building a major crude export operation in Calhoun County on the Texas Gulf Coast.

SGR stated that its oil storage and terminaling infrastructure at the Calhoun Port Authority in Point Comfort, Texas, can now load 300,000 barrels of oil onto vessels per month but that its expansion will double that volume next year.

“The port currently offers docks for barge-to-ship operations,” SGR President and CEO Tommy San Miguel told Rigzone. “SGR is looking at running a pipeline from our existing terminal in Victoria to Point Comfort as well as acquiring or leasing storage in Point Comfort to tie the proposed pipeline into.”

San Miguel noted that adding a pipeline would overcome a significant infrastructure challenge.

“Not having the ability to pull a ship up to our dock and load definitely impacts the time and costs of our operation,” he said. “However, we will be very profitable with the current infrastructure and in even better shape if we are successful with plans for a pipeline.”

San Miguel also pointed out that his firm is covering its bases at the export and import ends of the spectrum.

“SGR is purchasing a petroleum terminal in Barranquilla, Colombia, that we have been commercially operating since July 2018,” he explained. “This terminal gives SGR a strategic advantage to import crude and naphtha into Colombia.”

In addition, San Miguel said that Point Comfort’s central location between Houston and Corpus Christi gives SGR “excellent access to regional crudes” for export.

“SGR Energy will export more than three million barrels of crude oil through the Calhoun Port Authority by the end of 2020, and we expect to expand that operations and double that volume in 2021,” commented Vickie Chamberlin, SGR’s vice president for business development.

In fact, SGR’s executives anticipate the new infrastructure at Point Comfort will add more than $270 million in annual revenue to the company over the next year – with more sales gains to come as the firm’s logistical infrastructure expands.

San Miguel also weighed in on his company’s competitive position given ongoing oil market volatility – most notably a plunging West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price.

“As a pure crude trading and refined products operation, we buy and sell off an index and have little in the way of fixed costs,” San Miguel concluded. “WTI below $23 per barrel affects our profits, with $15.50 per barrel as a breakeven.”
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