Pipeline Transportation Operations
Buckeye Partners owns and operates approximately 5,400 miles of underground pipelines serving approximately 100 delivery locations. These pipelines transport refined petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, heating oil and kerosene from major supply sources to distribution terminals located in major end-use markets. Our pipelines also transport products such as propane and butane, natural gas liquids, refinery feedstocks and blending components. Pipeline transportation service typically is provided on a common-carrier basis under published tariffs for approximately 110 customers.
Our pipelines provide a vital transportation link between major petroleum refining and supply locations and consumption centers, including major metropolitan areas. Buckeye’s operations deliver consistent results because (i) pipeline volumes are driven primarily by demand in the markets served, (ii) the Partnership’s pipelines and terminals are geographically diversified of supply, and (iii) the pipelines deliver petroleum products to numerous delivery locations.
Terminal Operations
Buckeye owns more than 60 refined products terminal facilities in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Our terminals business provides a variety of services for its customers including product storage, injection of additives, loading of refined products at truck racks, ethanol and bio-diesel blending, railcar offloading, barge loading and unloading, and transfers to connecting pipelines.
Natural Gas Storage
Through our subsidiary Lodi Gas Storage, Buckeye owns and operates natural gas storage facilities with approximately 22 billion cubic feet (“Bcf”) of working gas capacity in northern California. The natural gas storage facilities are connected to Pacific Gas and Electric’s intrastate gas pipelines that serve natural gas demand in the San Francisco and Sacramento areas. Lodi’s customers use the storage facilites to support diverse businesses including electric power generation, winter heating demand, natural gas production and other commercial applications. Buckeye currently is constructing an expansion to the Kirby Hills portion of the storage facility complex which is expected to add another 12 Bcf of working storage capacity.
Fuel Distribution and Marketing
The Partnership’s Farm & Home Oil Company subsidiary is one of the leading independent fuel distributors in the Mid- Atlantic region. In its 2007 fiscal year, Farm & Home provided more than 550 million gallons of refined petroleum products to its customers. Farm & Home supplies a broad range of fuels, including gasoline, heating oil, propane, on-road and off-road diesel and kerosene, to more than 1,000 wholesale customers.
Contract Pipeline Operations
The Partnership’s Gulf Coast subsidiary operates and/or maintains approximately 2,400 miles of gas and liquid pipelines in the United States Gulf Coast area. Buckeye operates pipelines and underground storage facilities owned by major oil and chemical companies on a contract basis, handling over forty different petrochemical products for approximately one dozen major customers. These operations are controlled from Buckeye’s state-of-the-art pipeline control facility. The pipelines operated and maintained by Buckeye stretch from West Texas, Freeport and Texas City to Mont Belvieu, Port Arthur and Orange near the Louisiana border. Buckeye also is the majority owner and operator of a 90-mile crude butadiene pipeline system that extends from the Houston Ship Channel to the Port Arthur, Texas area.
Buckeye Gulf Coast’s experienced staff of engineering, construction and operating personnel provides superior and cost-effective pipeline and storage services to the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. We offer a complete range of services to our customers including the design, construction, operation and maintenance of pipeline and storage facilities.
Joint Ventures and Minority Interests
Buckeye is the majority or fifty percent owner of joint venture projects with Kealine Partners. These projects, collectively known as WesPac, involve the construction and operation of pipelines and terminals that serve airports. WesPac owns and operates pipelines serving the San Diego International Airport in California and the Memphis International Airport in Tennessee.
The Partnership also owns minority interests in joint venture pipeline companies. The Partnership owns an approximate 25% equity interest in West Shore Pipe Line Company and a 20% partnership interest in West Texas LPG Pipeline Limited Partnership. West Shore owns and operates a refined products pipeline system that originates in the Chicago, Illinois area and extends north to Green Bay, Wisconsin and northwest to Madison, Wisconsin. West Texas LPG owns a natural gas liquids pipeline system that delivers NGLs to the nation’s largest NGL market hub in Mont Belvieu, Texas. |