New fuel oil terminal to be built in Houston

From Tom Fowler in the Houston Chronicle comes news that a company called Battleground Oil Specialty Terminal Co., or Bostco, is building a 7.8 million-barrel black oil terminal on an 187-acre lot on the Houston Ship Channel. The company’s principal, John McDonald, started the Houston Fuel Oil Terminal more than 30 years ago. Today that company is the largest handler of heavy refining byproducts called black oil (i.e., bunker and residual fuel oil). The Bostco facility will be located several miles closer to the Gulf of Mexico along the Ship Channel than the Houston Fuel Oil Terminal, on land previously owned by power plant operator NRG Energy and directly adjacent to the company’s 765-megawatt natural gas-fired NR Bertron power plant. The Bostco facility will have two docks capable of handling tankers with 45-foot-deep draughts, 12 spots for barges, 12 rail car spots, and pipeline connections for crude. Construction should begin in the second half of 2011 and the terminal should become operational in the first half of 2013.