Phillips 66 Partners has started line fill and commissioning activities on its 900,000 b/d Gray Oak crude pipeline from the Permian basin in west Texas to the US Gulf coast.
The company expects to begin initial service in November and full service next year, Phillips 66 said today on an earnings call.
The initial service will be to Corpus Christi destinations. From there, shippers can connect to Kinder Morgan's 300,000 b/d crude and condensate pipeline (KMCC) to the Houston Ship Channel, Phillips 66 said.
Kinder Morgan recently completed a connection to Gray Oak which allows shippers to move up to 100,000 b/d of Permian crude to KMCC delivery points. Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan are offering a joint tariff on the two lines. The entire Gray Oak system will be in full service by the end of the first quarter or early in the second quarter of 2020.
In addition to the Corpus Christi destinations, it will move Permian and Eagle Ford crude to the Sweeny area south of Houston, including to Phillips 66's 247,000 b/d Sweeny refinery.
Phillips 66 filed a tariff for Gray Oak earlier this month, saying "accelerated commissioning service" was estimated to start on 10 November. The tariff included transportation from points in west Texas to various destinations in south Texas, including Valero's 95,000 b/d refinery in Three Rivers.
Two other new lines that move Permian crude to the Gulf coast — the 670,000 b/d Cactus 2 and the 400,000 b/d Epic — went into service in August.
Gray Oak will connect to multiple terminals in Corpus Christi, including the South Texas Gateway terminal under construction by Buckeye Partners. That terminal will have two deepwater docks, 7mn bl of storage and 800,000 b/d in throughput capacity when it starts in mid-2020.
Phillips 66 still has two major crude pipeline projects in the queue: the Liberty pipeline to move Rockies and Bakken oil production to Cushing, and the Red Oak pipeline to carry crude from Cushing and the Permian basin to Texas coastal ports.
Both are supported by long-term shipper commitments and are expected to see initial service start in the first half of 2021.