Sittig optimistic about pipeline’s connection

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Platform (LOOP), located 20 miles south of Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico, has a strong environmental record and “is a good corporate citizen,” said Dale Sittig, executive director of the Louisiana Offshore Terminal Authority, at a Bayou Industrial Group meeting in Thibodaux last week.

The authority, part of the state Department of Transportation and Development, oversees LOOP’s busy operations.

LOOP unloads 12 percent of crude oil imports to the U.S. and is the only port in the country situated in water greater than 85 feet deep.

The port, completed in 1981, is privately owned by Murphy Oil, Shell and Marathon Oil. After being unloaded, crude oil is sent via pipeline to Port Fourchon where it is pumped to refineries throughout a large part of the country or is stored.

Sittig vacated a seat on the state Public Service Commission to become the authority’s executive director in September.

LOOP has around 100 employees who are well-paid, Sittig said.

The port sends out an underwater camera every three years to check to see whether undersea vegetation is being affected by the pipeline.

Sittig said more vegetation exists now around the pipeline than when it was first laid down.

LOOP handles nearly one oil tanker a day on average. The oil is unloaded through a flexible hose into three buoys located 8,000 feet from the huge Marine Terminal Platform.

The oil then travels to the terminal through a pipeline.

The terminal has living quarters on one side and 6,000 horsepower pumps on the other that push the crude oil to shore, Sittig said. Some of the crude is stored at the Clovelly Dome Storage Terminal near Galliano, which has a salt dome that can hold 50 million barrels of oil.

Sittig said security is tight at LOOP. No one can enter the facility without a Transportation Worker Identity Card (TWIC).

He said a deepwater port planned to be located off the Texas coast should pose little competition for LOOP since LOOP handles little crude headed for Texas. The Texas project is currently “on the backburner,” Sittig said, and is at least five years away from becoming operational – if it is built.