April 22, 2013 [Reuters/Platts] - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners may further expand an already expanded condensate splitter planned at its Galena Park terminal along the Houston Ship Channel, Chief Executive Rich Kinder told analysts on Wednesday. The company expects to begin biodiesel blending at its terminals in Las Vegas and Phoenix "in the early part of the second quarter," the company said Wednesday.
“We think there may be opportunity to add even additional volumes on a going forward basis,” he said during the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call.
Kinder Morgan last month said it would increase the facility’s processing capability by 40,000 barrels per day to 100,000 barrels per day and add 700,000 barrels of storage capacity for a total of 1.9 million barrels.
The expansion increased the cost to $360 million from $200 million. The first phase will start up next year, followed by the second phase in 2015, Kinder said.
In response to an analyst’s question, Kinder later said the company’s 300,000 barrels per day crude/condensate pipeline that originates in the Eagle Ford shale oil play in Texas is moving growing volumes of condensate. The line started up in June last year.
Kinder said the initial contract with BHP Billiton was for 25,000 barrels per day and is doubling.
“That throughput alone is sufficient to make it a very viable project economically,” Kinder added.
The company since struck a deal with Phillips 66 to build a lateral pipeline to the refiner’s 247,000 bpd refinery in Sweeny, Texas, with an initial capacity of 65,000 bpd expandable to 100,000 bpd. Kinder said Phillips has taken about 20,000 bpd of additional capacity so far.
He added that Kinder Morgan expects to add two more customers that will need up to 50,000 bpd more in capacity.
“We see that is going to be an extraordinarily good investment for us because there’s just a lot of people, a lot of producers want to get to the Houston Ship Channel,” Kinder said. “That helped us secure the contract to build the condensate splitter.”
Kinder Morgan to Blend Biodiesel in Las Vegas and Phoenix (Phoenix Madison, Phoenix 3rd Ave. and Phoenix 51st Ave.) Terminals
Recently completed modifications at those terminals will allow for receipt, storage and blending of biodiesel, it said in a statement without giving more details.
The company is benefitting from a spike in the price of renewable credits, known as RINs. The move is “positive for us because we generate excess RINs at our transmix facilities,” said CEO Richard Kinder during a conference call.
He said Kinder Morgan generates 700,000 gal/month of excess RINs. “We are selling them on a monthly basis to a customer who wants to take all we have,” said Kinder, without specifying the types of RINs.
The price of ethanol RINs for 2013 is now about 70 cents/RIN, up from about 7 cents in January. Biodiesel RINs for 2013 started the year at 45 cents/RIN, and were valued Wednesday at 83 cents/RIN.
Refiners are buying RINs to meet growing US mandates for renewable fuel use.
Besides buying RINs, refiners can meet growing renewables targets by blending more renewables such as ethanol into petroleum transportation fuels like gasoline, which in gasoline’s case takes away market share and goes against most car warranties, or by investing in their own renewables production.
Many refiners are choosing to buy ethanol RINs rather than blend at levels above the 10% “blend wall.”
The blend wall has been created as renewables targets rise and gasoline demand has flattened out, with most cars only taking a 10% ethanol-gasoline blend called E10.
