“The Port of Corpus Christi is really an infrastructure play,” Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi, told Hart Energy at the recent DUG Eagle Ford Conference in San Antonio.

Complementing prolific oil and gas plays like the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale, Corpus Christi is a preferred gateway to international markets, Strawbridge said.

“Only 5% of the global markets are here in the United States, so that means that 95% of consumer demand resides outside the United States,” he said. That’s a great opportunity for this country to reduce its trade deficit and Corpus Christi is certainly at the apex of that new paradigm.”

The port’s location relative to the Eagle Ford and Permian, as well as to deep water sets the port apart, Strawbridge said. The facility’s improvement projects to, particularly its $350 million proposal to deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, has attracted bipartisan support at both the state and federal levels. The goals of the project dovetail with the Trump administration’s goals:

  • Infrastructure;
  • Balancing trade; and
  • Energy resiliency.

Completing the ship channel improvement will fully optimize the port, allowing ships to fully load and add as much as $40 billion in export goods value per year, or more than 10% of the U.S. trade deficit with China.

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