MARAD approves $1 billion Blue Marlin offshore oil port license

The U.S. Maritime Administration has approved a deepwater port license for Blue Marlin Offshore Port, a planned $1 billion crude-oil export facility about 99 miles off Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

The facility is designed to handle up to 2 million barrels per day, or 80,000 barrels per hour, and to load Very Large Crude Carriers in deep water. MARAD said the project would use existing and converted platform infrastructure in West Cameron Block 509 and connect to inland crude-oil hubs in Texas and southwest Louisiana through a dedicated pipeline system.

The announced $1 billion is the project’s facility cost, not a grant, financing close or awarded contract. MARAD estimated the development could support as many as 1,052 construction jobs. The agency did not disclose a construction start, completion schedule, procurement plan or principal construction contractor.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the approval, while MARAD Administrator Stephen M. Carmel described the license as the administration’s fourth deepwater-port approval. The underlying record of decision and associated material are filed under federal docket MARAD-2020-0127.

License approval advances the project’s regulatory stage but does not by itself establish that construction financing has closed or that contracting is open. For marine contractors, pipeline specialists and port-equipment suppliers, the next public milestone will be a developer construction schedule or procurement notice; no date for either was announced.