Owner’s Engineering for Deepwater Terminal

Reducing port congestion for Trafigura Trading to load 60,000 bbl/h onto eight VLCCs

Project overview

  • Offshore oil-loading terminal for eight VLCCs per month
  • 60,000-BPH loading rate (192 MMBPY)
  • SPM buoy
  • Shore-to-terminal pipeline
  • Onshore storage

Scope of work

Project summary

Audubon was selected by Trafigura Trading to provide owner’s engineering for a deepwater terminal off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas. The Texas Gulf Terminals project included a single-point mooring (SPM) buoy, a shore-to-terminal pipeline, and an onshore storage terminal.

The offshore port has a loading capacity of 192 MMBPY from eight very large crude carriers (VLCCs), making it the first in Texas to handle this type of vessel. To achieve this important goal, Audubon leveraged its expertise in project management for pipelines and terminals, including controls, scheduling, coordination, and compliance.

With the Audubon owner’s engineering services brought to its deepwater terminal project, Trafigura Trading was able to build an efficient, alternative loading option in the Gulf of Mexico that reduces port congestion.