Sunoco Logistics Partners LP (SXL) , the $7 billion market-cap oil and gas pipeline company from Texas, saw shares spike to within a dollar of their 52-week high on Thursday after announcing the initiation of a binding open season for its Permian Express 2 pipeline.
The Permian Express 2 is a pipeline project whose ultimate goal is to facilitate the delivery of crude from the Permian Basin, one of the world’s largest deposits of rocks from the geological period of the same name. Located mostly in the western portion of the state of Texas, as well as a bit of New Mexico, Permian has been a longstanding domestic source of oil in the US, and has also proven itself incredibly valuable in the nascent and much heralded shale energy boom.
According to Sunoco, the Permian Express 2 project will entail at least 300 miles of pipe, and will have a starting capacity of about 200,000 barrels per day, to be transported to both the companies own facilities, as well as those of interested third-party pipelines, with the Gulf Coast expected to be one of the main destinations.
The company has already been having a good year, with shares up some 33 percent since January 1, and yesterday’s late announcement just made it a little better, with shares climbing to $67. But the news bodes well for pipeline companies in general, who stand to benefit from both the delay/annulment of the proposed and widely reviled Keystone XL project, as well the continent-wide ramp up in production that is expected to be a trend in the long-term.
Gas pipeline segment of the basic materials sector had a banner day in general, with substantial gains for all but 5 out of 44 listed companies. Spectra Energy Partners (SEP) was up 3 percent to $43.92, while DCP Midstream Partners (DPM) added 2.5 percent to $49.37, followed by TC Pipelines (TCP) and SemGroup Corporation (SEMG) .
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