Storage Terminals & Hubs

Storage terminals and hubs (for crude oil, refined products, LNG import/export, etc.) enable the movement and trading of hydrocarbons.

‍

While storage facilities themselves generate revenue mainly via throughput fees or arbitrage, their delay can constrain market access – for instance, if an export terminal is not ready, producers must hold back production or use costlier alternatives.

‍

A large crude terminal or hub can handle on the order of hundreds of thousands of barrels per day (e.g. a 300k bpd export terminal ~$18 million of oil flow per day at $60/bbl).

‍

Delays in such infrastructure thus represent deferred sales. In practice, even partial outages or delays have multi-million-dollar impacts: e.g., recent pipeline terminal halts in Nigeria disrupted $10–15 million per day of oil flows.

‍

Globally, only a few major terminal projects come online each year (perhaps ~5 projects/year >$100M).

‍

If each is delayed by a few months on average, the annual opportunity cost from storage/logistics delays is on the order of a few billion USD (and even higher if a critical global hub is affected).

‍

‍

Daily Opportunity Loss (USD)

≈ $5–10 million per day (per terminal, depending on scale; large oil hubs can see >$10M/day of throughput value)

‍

Projects per Year (global)

~5 projects/year (major storage terminals, export/import hubs >$100M globally)

‍

Average Delay per Project

~6 months (≈ 180 days on average; delays in land acquisition, construction, or commissioning are common)

‍

Annual Opportunity Loss (USD)

≈ $3–5 billion/year (estimated unrealized value from delayed storage capacity, globally aggregated)

‍

* If you are interested in our research and data sources, visit this link.