File photo: REUTERS/Tim Chong
By Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Feb 14, 2025 (Bloomberg) –Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Trump administration planned to “move forward” with approval of a Texas port capable of shipping 1 million barrels of oil a day proposed by Sentinel Midstream LLC.
The project, first proposed in 2019 and known as the Texas GulfLink Deepwater Port, has been awaiting a final authorization from the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration.
“That was held up for five years, and it was stonewalled. Bureaucrats got in the way, and now we are moving forward with that,” Duffy told reporters Friday in the Oval Office, where he joined President Donald Trump for the signing of an executive order creating a new council to steer US energy policy. “We are going to move forward with a permitting process for the Texas GulfLink Deepwater Port,” he added.
Duffy cast the port as important to “making sure we can move energy in and out of the country.”
The project, proposed off the coast of Brazoria County, Texas, would allow oversized oil tankers known as very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, to load as much as 85,000 barrels of crude oil an hour.
Gulflink and similar oil terminals have faced increasing objections from environmental activists, who pressured former President Joe Biden to halt those projects arguing that they’re incompatible with environmental justice and fighting climate change.
GulfLink alone would be responsible for more than 100 million tons of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to Earthworks, an environmental group opposed to the project.
Still, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency authorized the Texas GulfLink project in October and his administration last April signed off on a similar nearby export facility by Enterprise Products Partners LP with the capacity to export 2 million barrels of oil a day.
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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