US Approves $1 Billion Oil Port With Capacity of 2 Million Barrels a Day
Key Facts
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on November 5, 2026, that the U.S. Maritime Administration had approved a license application for the Blue Marlin Offshore Port, an offshore crude oil export facility with a stated cost of $1 billion. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the project would open "vital supply lines to global markets," while its design capacity is 2 million barrels a day. The stated loading rate is 80,000 barrels an hour, according to the department. The port is designed to receive and load very large crude carriers directly in deep water. The approval grants the project a maritime license, while the department has not announced a construction or operations start date.
The port will be located about 99 miles off the coast of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, in West Cameron Block 509. The facility will rely on existing, converted platform infrastructure, according to the department's statement. A dedicated pipeline system will connect the port with inland supply hubs in Texas, including the Nederland terminal area, and southwestern Louisiana. Crude will reach the offshore platforms from these hubs before being loaded onto tankers. The design places the offshore export outlet at the end of a route linking onshore supplies to the deep waters of the Gulf.
The department says deepwater loading will ease congestion at inland ports and reduce the risks of vessel collisions and related safety hazards. It will also allow VLCCs to be received and loaded directly at sea, a central feature of the facility's design. The department estimated that the project would support up to 1,052 jobs during construction. Duffy said the port would strengthen supply lines to global markets, while the Maritime Administration's head described the approval as the fourth of its kind under the Trump administration. The department also said Blue Marlin is the second crude oil export facility to receive approval since the "Unleashing American Energy" executive order was issued.
The project's regulatory process began years before the current approval: Blue Marlin submitted its application to the Maritime Administration and the Coast Guard on October 1, 2020. The two agencies deemed the application complete on October 22 of that year, and a notice of the application was published in the Federal Register on November 4, 2020. The Maritime Administration said the statutory processing clock remained suspended pending additional technical and environmental information from the applicant. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement on November 5, 2020, with the Maritime Administration serving as the lead agency for the review. The agency filed the project's final environmental impact statement on July 17, 2026, with the review or comment period ending on August 17.
In the air-permitting process, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on September 28, 2026, that it was opening a comment period on two draft permits for the project and set October 29 as the deadline for comments. The agency said it would consider and respond to significant comments before making a final decision on the permits. On October 1, it had proposed air permits, noting that the design includes a system expected to capture 99% of vapors during crude transfer and loading. The agency estimated that adopting the proposed measures could allow exports of about 605 million barrels a year. These figures remain tied to the agency's estimates and the proposed-permit process, while the Maritime Administration granted the license approval on November 5.
Maritime Administration data indicate that the application envisioned proposed capacity of 1,920,000 barrels a day, with loading of up to 80,000 barrels an hour and operations 365 days a year. The approval statement, meanwhile, announced capacity of up to 2 million barrels a day, a formulation close to the figure in the application. The agency links its estimated annual export capacity to the proposed air-permit measures, while the department's statement specifies the port's design capacity. In the market, Energy Transfer units, trading under the ticker ET, closed at $20.16 on November 3, 2026. That close preceded the department's approval announcement, published on November 5, and the data provided do not include a post-announcement price.