Researchers at Wood Mackenzie said Permian Basin will need additional crude oil takeaway capacity of up to 500,000 barrels per day by the end of the next decade to accommodate increasing production. A moderate overbuild of pipeline capacity is expected in the early 2020s when current pipeline projects are completed. Midstream operators are expected to add about 4 million b/d of new capacity bound for the U.S. Gulf Coast by Dec. 31, 2022 (more than 2 million b/d to Corpus Christi) that will result in 2-to-3 years of overbuild, Wood Mackenzie said.
Analyst John Coleman of Wood Mackenzie added, “We are in the midst of one of the largest crude infrastructure investment booms in U.S. history with much of the investment focused on the Permian Basin. As massive as this current investment wave is, we don’t think the story is yet finished. Additional capacity adds will be needed again by the end of the next decade.”