Federal regulators have approved plans for a new $1 billion crude oil terminal off the coast of Cameron Parish, the latest in a string of major investments in Louisiana’s energy sector.
The U.S. Maritime Administration on Tuesday approved an application for the Blue Marlin Offshore Port, which, at full capacity, will be able to export nearly 2 million barrels per day — nearly half of all annual U.S. crude oil exports — from a converted gas platform about 99 miles off the coast of southwest Louisiana.
Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based company behind the offshore facility, plans to convert an existing natural gas pipeline to carry the oil out to sea. At the same time, the company would also build a new, 37-mile pipeline to run from the company’s Nederland crude oil terminal near Port Arthur, Texas across Sabine Lake to a compression station on the Louisiana coast.
“Louisiana is an energy state, and we intend to remain one,” Gov. Jeff Landry wrote in a Sept. 18 letter endorsing the application. “This project is the kind of infrastructure that keeps American crude moving to world markets on American terms.”
The new port, to be constructed out of a retrofitted natural gas platform complex and two loading buoys to fill up supertankers, is the first of several new facilities that will pose a competitive threat to LOOP, which was built in the 1970s and is owned by a consortium of oil companies.
Located about 18 miles off the coast of Port Fourchon, LOOP has a capacity of 1.2 million barrels of crude oil a day and is the only functional deepwater offshore oil terminal.
A small tanker transferring cargo at the Deepwater Port moored to one of LOOP’s three cargo transfer buoys Located in 115 feet of water. LOOP is America’s only deepwater offshore oil terminal, offloading in a 56-square-mile safety zone.
But the Blue Marlin Offshore Port is one of four new offshore terminals to have gotten the green light from federal maritime regulators in the past two years.
It follows the Maritime Administration’s approval of the Texas Gulflink crude oil terminal about 30 miles off the coast of Brazoria County, Texas, and of two Liquified Natural Gas Terminals —ST LNG deepwater port 10 miles offshore from Matagorda, Texas, and Delfin LNG about 44 miles off the coast of Cameron Parish.
Since taking office for a second time, Donald Trump’s administration has expedited deepwater port licensing to remove what Maritime Administration Administrator Stephen Carmel described as “antiquated regulations.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement that the administration is focused on “securing energy dominance” for future generations of Americans and bolstering national security.
According to the Maritime Administration’s decision, the port will result in 39 permanent jobs and is not expected to have an effect on oil prices in the U.S.
The port would also cut down on the chance of collisions by reducing the need for smaller tankers to shuttle oil from ports around Beaumont and Port Arthur to fill supertankers.
Landry signed off on the project in September with four sets of conditions — that it complies with state laws, provides compensatory mitigation for wetland damage, maintains an up-to-date oil spill response plan and posts a bond big enough to cover the cost of decommissioning the project, estimated at about $104 million across both its Texas and Louisiana components.
The Maritime Administration attached 19 more conditions to the approval. They include endangered species consultations, environmental monitoring, coordination with the Coast Guard and Defense Department and a contingency plan for surrounding communities in case of an accident.
It’s not clear when construction could begin on the project, which was originally proposed in 2020 with a goal of starting commercial service before the end of 2023.
Representatives of Energy Transfer did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Separately, Energy Transfer this month announced that it had made a final investment decision on a $1.6 billion natural gas pipeline to run from Richland Parish, where Meta is building its massive Hyperion AI data center, to George County in southeast Mississippi.
Energy Transfer previously signed a 20-year agreement to supply 250 billion BTUs of natural gas to Entergy Louisiana’s facilities in Richland Parish starting in 2028.
