Buckeye Partners, L.P. announced this week it will acquire an 80% interest in Trafigura AG's South Texas Eagle Ford midstream assets for $860-million. The deal creates a new joint venture, whereby Trafigura will retain a 20% interest in its assets and jointly own the new company, Buckeye Texas Partners, that will own and operate the assets divested by Trafigura.
In the deal, Buckeye gains a deep-water, high volume marine terminal located on the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, a condensate splitter and LPG storage complex in Corpus Christi, and three crude oil and condensate gathering facilities in the Eagle Ford shale. All of the assets are supported by 7- to 10-year minimum volume throughput, storage and tolling agreements with Trafigura.
“We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Trafigura and to position ourselves with them in the rapidly growing Corpus Christi and Eagle Ford markets,” stated Mr. Smith. “We believe this strategic partnership will provide significant opportunities for additional infrastructure expansion to support further expected growth in these markets.”
Buckeye Texas Partners will invest appoximately $240-million - $270-million on improvements to the system, increasing its liquid petroleum products storage capacity to 5.6-million barrels. A 50,000 barrel per day condensate splitter is currently under construction and is anticipated to be completed by mid-2015.
Read more at buckeye.com
