Enterprise lays off 90 workers, more likely

Market: Crude oil, LPG
22/01/15

Midstream operator Enterprise Products Partners has laid off about 90 workers in Houston and may cut more, according to sources familiar with the plans.

Most of the workers were notified of the job cuts early last week. A company spokesman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Enterprise had 6,685 employees as of February 2014.

Fellow midstream company Enbridge Energy said in December it eliminated under 100 positions in its US gas pipelines and processing business unit. Many US exploration and production companies have also announced job cuts in response to a slowdown in drilling plans following the steep drop in crude prices since last summer.

The biggest job cut announcements have come from the larger oil field services companies. Schlumberger will lay off about 9,000 employees worldwide by the end of the first quarter, Baker Hughes is planning 7,000 layoffs and Halliburton will cut 1,000 non-US employees.

Enterprise is the largest US LPG infrastructure company in terms of storage capacity, pipeline transportation and, more recently, export capacity. It owns 24 natural gas processing plants, 22 fractionators and at least 100mn bl of NGL storage in the Mont Belvieu, Texas, hub alone.

The company has spent $13bn on projects since 2011 and has another $6bn worth of new projects in the works through 2016. Enterprise's LPG export terminal in the Houston Ship Channel was expanded to 7.5mn bl/month last year, with additional expansion plans to grow to 16mn bl/month by the end of 2015. It also expanded its services to include ethane exports through a 7.2mn bl/month facility in Morgan's Point, Texas.

Enterprise last month started up its joint venture 450,000 b/d Seaway twin pipeline, which is bringing heavy crude from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the Houston, Texas, area. The company also in 2014 won clearance from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to export distilled condensate. And it is weighing a 450,000 b/d Permian basin pipeline from Midland to Houston, Texas, that would carry condensate and crude.

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