Decision means Eagle Ford condensate can be exported

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/eagle-ford-fix/2014/06/decision-means-eagle-ford-condensate-can-be-exported/



Decision means Eagle Ford condensate can be exported
Posted on June 25, 2014 | By Jennifer Hiller

WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department’s decision to allow two Texas companies to export a minimally distilled variety of ultralight oil is a win for Eagle Ford Shale crude producers, at the expense of refiners and companies planning to build processing plants along the Gulf Coast.

The agency effectively declared those types of ultralight oil — called condensates — are a petroleum product free for export as long as they have been run through a distillation tower. The ruling is likely to change the economics of some of the Gulf Coast’s more expensive processing plants.

Magellan Midstream Partners, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, Total and Targa Resources Partners all have built or announced plans to build such splitters in Texas in a bid to capitalize on the flood of ultralight condensates coming out of the Eagle Ford Shale and the 39-year-old ban on most crude exports.

Because unprocessed condensates are barred from export under that ban, the splitters have been viewed as one option for taking that condensate and producing naphtha, gasoil and other products that can, in turn, be transformed with additional materials into gasoline and diesel.