Joint Venture Project to Boost Plains All American's 2019 Capex

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A joint venture oil pipeline project with Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (ExxonMobil) (Irving, Texas) will help propel Plains All American Pipeline LP's (NYSE:PAA) (Houston, Texas) 2019 capital program toward the $1 billion mark, executives with the midstream company said last week. Industrial Info is tracking more than $2.2 billion project activity involving Plains.

Click on the image at right for a graph showing Plains All American Pipeline project activity.

Speaking to investment analysts during the company's third-quarter 2018 earnings conference call, Plains Chief Executive Officer Willie Chiang said he expects the company's combined capital program for 2018-2019 to remain unchanged at $2.6 billion. For more information, see August 9, 2018, article - Plains All American Ramps Up Capital Spending to Increase Permian Takeaway.

"However, we expect the 2019 capital program of $650 million to increase closer to the $1 billion level, primarily driven by expected progression of the ExxonMobil (joint venture) project, in addition to sanctioning other new projects," Chiang said.

Plains would be a minority owner of the $1 billion crude oil pipeline project, which would transfer 1 million barrels per day of Permian Basin crude oil from a crude oil metering station near Wink, Texas, Texas, to a crude oil terminal in Corpus Christi, Texas. Construction of the pipeline is expected to start in third-quarter 2019, with completion in early 2021. For more information, see Industrial Info's project report.

Chiang also noted the recent early commissioning of the $500 million Sunrise crude oil pipeline expansion project. With the expansion, about 350,000 barrels per day of Permian crude is being moved from Midland, Texas, to Colorado City, Texas, and then to Wichita Falls, Texas, with connections to Cushing, Oklahoma.

"By bringing Sunrise into service early, we were able to add much-needed capacity to the market. We also continue to make good progress on the balance of our capital program," Chiang said. For more information, see Industrial Info's reports on the Midland-Colorado City, Colorado City-Wichita Falls and Oklahoma segments.

For the just-ended quarter, Plains reported $710 million in net income, compared with $33 million a year earlier. The increase was driven in part by increased volume on its Permian Basin systems, as well as its sale of a 30% interest in Bridge Tex LLC, the owner of the Bridge Tex Pipeline, to OMERS Infrastructure Management Incorporated, part of a pension plan for municipal employees in Ontario, Canada. The Bridge Tex Pipeline is a 400,000-barrel-per-day crude oil pipeline system that extends from Colorado City in West Texas to Houston, with further connectivity for Bridge Tex shippers to the Texas City area.

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