OREANDA-NEWS. New oil pipelines scheduled to begin service in the first half of 2016 will provide more US Gulf coast refiners with pipeline access to Canadian heavy crude.

TransCanada's Houston Lateral, which is scheduled to come online during the second quarter, will connect the company's 700,000 b/d Marketlink pipeline — which runs from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the Sunoco Logistics terminal in Nederland, Texas — with its new Houston Tank Terminal (HTT) equipped with 700,000 bl of storage.

HTT is connected by a 20-inch pipeline to ExxonMobil's 557,000 b/d refinery in Baytown, Texas. The Baytown refinery took an average of 55,762 b/d of crude imports below 24° API during the first nine months of 2015, primarily from Mexico and Iraq.

A link from HTT to Magellan's East Houston terminal is expected to come online in late 2016. Magellan's East Houston terminal provides connectivity for Canadian crude shipments on Marketlink to Houston Ship Channel-area destinations that currently only have access to Canadian shipments on Enbridge's 585,000 b/d Flanagan South Pipeline Project (FSP). Enbridge began service on FSP, which runs from Flanagan, Illinois, to the Texas Gulf coast, in late 2014, giving Gulf coast shippers greater access to Canadian heavy.

Receipts of Canadian crude at LyondellBasell's 268,000 b/d refinery in Houston, Texas, averaged 43,978 b/d during the first nine months of 2015, up from just 2,659 b/d during the same period in 2014. The company is a committed shipper on FSP.

FSP delivers to the Enterprise Crude Houston (Echo) terminal in Houston, Texas, and a lateral connects Echo terminal to the Phillips 66 terminal in Beaumont, Texas.

Texas receipts of Canadian heavy below 24° API in September climbed to a record 285,830 b/d after Enbridge in July expanded the capacity of its Line 67 — an upstream line that supplies FSP —to 800,000 b/d from 570,000 b/d.

The 30-inch Bayou Bridge pipeline, a joint venture between Phillips 66, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Sunoco Logistics, will connect refiners in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to the Phillips 66 Beaumont terminal and the Sunoco Nederland terminal when it begins service during the first quarter.

Bayou Bridge, the capacity of which has not yet been finalized, will give Lake Charles refiners access to Canadian heavy crude shipped to the Gulf coast on FSP and Marketlink. Phillips 66 has said that the line will ship North American heavy and light grades.

Canadian heavy crude could displace heavy sour waterborne imports from Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil to Phillips 66's 252,000 b/d Westlake refinery in Lake Charles.

The Westlake refinery imported 82,894 b/d of crude below 24° API during the first nine months of 2015, including 8,967 b/d from Ecuador, 8,934 b/d from Brazil and 6,938 b/d from Colombia.

It also took 33,245 b/d of Canadian crude below 24° API from January through May.

Citgo's 20-inch Sour Lake pipeline already links its 425,000 b/d refinery in Lake Charles with Hardin county, Texas, but Sour Lake provides the refinery with light crude.

The line exported to Louisiana between 151,143 b/d and 179,496 b/d of crude it received from Sunoco Logistics' 300,000 b/d West Texas Gulf pipeline from January through April, according to Texas Railroad Commission filings. West Texas Gulf ships light Permian crude from Colorado City, Texas. Sour Lake shipped between 188,608 b/d and 210,515 b/d of crude received from Sun Pipeline Company from May through September.

Citgo Lake Charles imported 131,516 b/d of crude below 24° API during the first nine months of 2015, 120,315 b/d of which came from Venezuela. Canadian shipments won't displace Venezuelan imports — Citgo is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Venezuelan national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela — but they may displace heavy sour imports from Brazil (5,110 b/d), Colombia (4,414 b/d) and Angola (1,678 b/d).