Storage capacity near the origin of the Trans Mountain's crude pipeline system is on track to grow by 870,000 bl in the fourth quarter, Gibson Energy said today.
The Calgary-based midstream company is in the final stages of constructing two 435,000 bl tanks at its Edmonton Terminal that can be used to stage crude for shipping on the 890,000 b/d Trans Mountain system. This includes the recently started 590,000 b/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) that was put into service on 1 May and has been a boon for Canadian producers seeking a stronger connection with customers on the Pacific Rim.
"We would agree with industry in general that TMX seems to have gone very well thus far," said Gibson's chief financial officer Sean Brown on Wednesday. "As we look at our terminal, we continue to see a very compelling service offering as it relates to new tankage demand there."
The expanded 1,180-kilometer Trans Mountain system connects Edmonton, Alberta, to the docks at Burnaby, British Columbia, and has allowed shippers to better target refiners in California, China, Korea, India and Japan.
The two new tanks will be used by oil sands producer Cenovus and is underpinned by a 15-year contract, according to Gibson. The new tanks will add to the 2.1mn bl of capacity Gibson already has at Edmonton, with the company noting it has room to expand by another 1mn bl.
Volumes from the tanks would be pumped over to Trans Mountain's Edmonton Terminal which has 39 tanks and a total capacity of 9mn bl of its own.
TMX has helped to drive company-wide throughputs higher by 5pc in the third quarter, as has Gibson's 1mn b/d South Texas Gateway crude terminal (SGT) in Ingleside, Texas, which it acquired for $1.1bn in August 2023.
SGT can accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and is directly connected to the Permian and Eagle Ford basins via pipelines. Gibson plans to tap into another 670,000 b/d of Permian production with its Cactus II connection, expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2025. Cactus II is a joint venture between Enbridge and Plains that moves crude from Wink to Corpus Christi, Texas.
Throughputs on Gibson's entire network averaged 1.82mn b/d in the third quarter, up from 1.74mn b/d in the same period 2023.
Gibson Energy posted a profit of C$54mn ($40mn) on the quarter, up from a C$21mn profit during the same quarter of 2023.
