Plains All American, Enterprise Products To Expand Eagle Ford JV Pipeline

(RTTNews) - Plains All American Pipeline L.P. (PAA) and Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (EPD) Thursday agreed to expand their Eagle Ford Joint Venture crude oil pipeline. The pipeline expansion is expected to cost about $120 million and is to be in service in the second quarter of 2015.

The expansion will increase the pipeline's capacity to 470,000 barrels per day of light and medium crude oil grades to accommodate additional volumes expected from Plains All American's Cactus pipeline that is currently under construction, the companies said.

The Eagle Ford JV Pipeline system, most of which is currently in service and expected to be completed by September 30, 2013, is a 50/50 joint venture between Plains All American and Enterprise Products that serves the Three Rivers and Corpus Christi refineries and other markets via marine transport facilities at Corpus Christi. The pipeline supplies the Houston-area market through a connection to the Enterprise Crude Pipeline terminal at Lyssy in Wilson County, Texas.

The pipeline expansion will be completed in stages that include adding pumping capacity and looping certain segments of the existing system. The expansion also includes constructing an additional 2.3 million barrels of operational storage capacity in Gardendale, Tilden and Corpus Christi.

The Cactus Pipeline is being constructed by Plains All American from McCamey, Texas in the Permian Basin area to Gardendale in La Salle County, Texas. The pipeline will have an initial capacity of 200,000 barrels per day and is expected to be in service in the second quarter of 2015.