When big aerial pictures, swell-looking maps and charts with lots of numbers on websites exceed the importance of factors like vessel traffic, maximum draft air draft, number of pilots and availability of tugboats, then Gulf Coast competitors to the Houston Ship Channel might be able to up their game and challenge the champ.

Jim Teague, CEO of Enterprise Products Partners LP, practi-cally taunted competitors at a recent Houston Producers Forum who were lauding wannabes like the Texas ports of Corpus Christi, Freeport, Beaumont and Texas City. Despite rumors of congestion hampering operations, Houston continues to expand and keep up with growth, Teague said. (See related story, page 68.)

Two months later, SemGroup Corp. threw 2.1 billion reasons—and dollars—behind the argument that Houston’s port still reigns when it purchased Houston Fuel Oil Terminal Co., a spacious 330-acre terminal with 16.8 million barrels (MMbbl) of capacity, pipe-line connectivity to the local refining complex, deepwater marine access, and inbound pipeline, rail and truck receipt capabilities from all major producing basins.

The business is fully supported by take-or-pay contracts with primarily investment-grade counterparties that have been customers for an average of 15 years. The terminal is currently executing on contractually supported growth projects including a new ship dock, a new pipeline and connections, and 1.45 MMbbl of additional crude oil storage, expected to be in service mid-2018.

Not exactly your textbook investment in a past-its-prime seaport. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, and SemGroup said it intends to absorb the terminal’s 125-member workforce Rising rig counts in the Permian Basin mean more hydro-carbon supply, but domestic demand is not keeping up. That’s why discussions about exports were so prominent at Hart Energy’s recent Midstream Texas conference in Midland, Texas, and why SemGroup’s terminal deal positions the company so well for the future.

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