In the coastal bend of South Texas, the future of the global energy market is being constructed one epic infrastructure project at a time.

 The Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, just received the final permit to start a $327 million project to deepen the ship channel to 54 feet deep and widen it to 530 feet, which would make it roomy enough for two Very Large Crude Carriers or VLCCs, to pass each other. 

In mid-December, the port awarded nearly $12 million to erect a crude oil storage tank yard and pumping terminal at a more convenient place, Harbor Island, where VLCCs will be able to fill to the brim. And deep dredging is planned.

These massive infrastructure undertakings are just two among dozens of colossal infrastructure projects along Texas’ coastal bend. This crescent of sleepy beach towns and oyster-shell-crusted beaches is fast becoming a focal point for the world’s energy market. Tens of billions of dollars’ worth of public and private energy investments are transforming the area around Corpus Christi at a blinding pace. And most of them are dedicated to exporting energy—something that wasn’t possible until just a few years ago. 

In 2015, the federal government lifted a decades-old ban on the export of U.S. oil. That ruling was a starting gun for the new energy race in South Texas. “That repeal came about three years faster than we thought, and we hadn't quite geared up for that,” says Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi. “I think we're playing a little bit of a catchup.”

The signs are everywhere. Sprawling liquid natural gas plants are rising. Liquified natural gas (LNG) tankers appear on the horizon. Big bridges are being raised even higher to fit large ships through the channel. So many oil tanks are being built that there is discussion of when South Texas crude storage will be a benchmark for global prices, similar to the way the tank farms at Cushing, Oklahoma, affect domestic energy prices.

So, the lesson is that when government gets out of the way, the Free Hand of Capitalism takes over and enriches everyone.

Last year witnessed mind-bending gains in gas production in the United States, which jumped 12 percent in 2018 to a record 89.6 billion cubic feet a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Meanwhile, domestic consumption reached 81.7 billion cubic feet per day. What to do with the excess seems clear: sell it to whomever wants to buy it. That would have been an impossibility just a few years ago, but Congress in 2015 changed a Nixon-era regulation that prevented exports of natural gas. Moving LNG around the world was suddenly possible.

The Port of Corpus Christi

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