Logistics

ExxonMobil Corp. and Sunoco Logistics Partners LP have agreed to combine some of their key U.S. onshore crude oil assets, mostly in Texas, to establish a logistics network that would offer more takeaway options for shippers.

Houston-based Hi-Crush Partners LP, which provides northern white sand to pressure pumpers across North America, has secured partners to help fund an innovative logistics company for the proppant industry.

Sunoco Logistics Partners LP has struck a $760 million deal to acquire Vitol Group’s Permian Basin crude oil system in West Texas that is set to close by the end of the year. The transaction includes a 2 million bbl crude oil terminal in Midland and an oil gathering and mainline pipeline system in the Midland sub-basin, which includes an acreage dedication from a Permian producer. Also included are Vitol’s oil purchasing and marketing business in West Texas. The acquisition also would provide Sunoco Logistics 100% of SunVit Pipeline LLC, a 50-50 joint venture with Vitol that connects the Midland terminal to the partnership’s Permian Express 2 pipeline. In connection with the acquisition, Energy Transfer Partners LP and Energy Transfer Equity LP, owners of the partnership’s general partner Sunoco Partners LLC, agreed to reduce incentive distributions by $60 million over a two-year period. The financial assistance “provides us with expected accretive economics for this strategic acquisition,” Sunoco Logistics CEO Michael J. Hennigan said.

A trio of companies has proposed to construct the Bayou Bridge pipeline to carry crude oil from the Phillips 66 and Sunoco Logistics Partners LP terminals in Nederland, TX, to Lake Charles, LA.

With logistics for moving hydraulic fracturing (fracking) equipment snarled by mostly foul weather through May, North Dakota is facing a growing backlog of unfracked wells, according to Lynn Helms, the state’s director of the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

GreenHunter Resources Inc.’s planned water treatment, recycling and condensate handling logistics terminal in Wheeling, WV, to serve the Marcellus and Utica shale region could provide drillers with free recycled wastewater for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations.

GreenHunter Energy Inc., which last month saw its water handling facility in an Ohio town stormed by dozens of protestors, now faces another type of protest, with a southeastern Ohio community group demanding that the U.S. Coast Guard study the potential environmental impacts of the company’s proposed hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wastewater transfer station on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, OH.

NuStar Logistics LP, an affiliate of NuStar Energy LP, is holding a binding open season for firm priority space to transport crude petroleum from the Niobrara Shale near Platteville and Watkins, CO, to Wichita Falls, TX.

Dallas-based Bridger Logistics LLC, a division of Bridger Group LLC, plans to join Midland, TX-based Advantage Pipeline LLC in developing its Pecos River Pipeline project, which will transport oil from the Delaware Basin to markets in the Gulf Coast and Midland. The pipeline will originate near Pecos, TX, and terminate in Crane, TX, where it will connect to the Longhorn Pipeline — owned by Magellan Midstream Partners LP — and Centurion Pipeline LP’s Crane Station. Once fully operational, the pipeline will have an initial capacity of 150,000 b/d and consist of more than 75 miles of trunkline. Bridger Transfer Services LLC will develop lateral extensions, gathering stations, origination stations and truck offloading facilities. The pipeline is scheduled to be operational by 1Q2013.