{"id":651173,"date":"2018-12-02T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=651173"},"modified":"2018-12-03T07:34:27","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T14:34:27","slug":"surge-of-oil-and-gas-flowing-to-texas-coastline-triggers-building-boom-tensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/12\/surge-of-oil-and-gas-flowing-to-texas-coastline-triggers-building-boom-tensions\/","title":{"rendered":"Surge of oil and gas flowing to Texas coastline triggers building boom, tensions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pelican\"

Kevin Clancy \/ Newsy<\/p>

A brown pelican perches on a fishing pier, damaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, in Port Aransas, Texas, on June 6, 2018. In the background stand three offshore oil rigs.<\/p><\/div>\n

PORT ARANSAS, Texas \u2014 To the east, the Gulf of Mexico stretches out, blue-green and sparkling. To the west and north, flounder and trout meander in a chain of bays. People flock here to fish. Others come to this beach town near Corpus Christi to kayak, parasail or admire the hundreds of bird species on the barrier island, which is deep into rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Harvey damaged or destroyed 85 percent of the buildings here last year.<\/p>\n

A perfect location, from a certain point of view, to put not one but two crude-oil export terminals for ships so big they\u2019re called supertankers.<\/p>\n

Those proposals are part of a historic buildout of oil and gas infrastructure in the United States as it becomes a top exporter<\/a> of both<\/a> fuels<\/a>. Texas, home to the most prolific oilfield in the country, is at the epicenter of the frenzy. More than 80 plants, terminals and other projects are in the works or planned up and down the state\u2019s Gulf Coast, from Port Arthur to Brownsville, according to a Center for Public Integrity and Texas Tribune review of corporate plans. Companies have been laying enough pipeline in Texas in the last several years to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific three times over, more than 8,000 miles in all.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas<\/a> production in the U.S. has skyrocketed, particularly in the Permian Basin, most of which underlies West Texas. Producers there are employing new drilling technologies to meet \u2014 some would say prolong \u2014 the global demand for fossil fuels. When Congress lifted decades-old federal restrictions on crude exports at the end of 2015, a move that came on the heels of rule changes throwing open the doors for exports of natural gas<\/a>, it set off a mad dash. Companies want to get oil and gas from West Texas to the Gulf Coast and, from there, abroad.<\/p>\n

Much of the infrastructure is headed for just two regions: Houston \u2014 America\u2019s oil capital \u2014 and Corpus Christi, where a port previously focused on oil imports is battling it out with Houston to be the country\u2019s No. 1 location for moving crude to other nations. Each shipped out more than $7 billion in crude during the first nine months of the year, up from less than $1 billion two years earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. Terminals once used to bring oil in are pushing it the other direction.<\/p>\n