Buckeye Partners, L.P. announced this week it will acquire an 80% interest in Trafigura AG's South Texas Eagle Ford midstream assets for $860-million. The deal creates a new joint venture, whereby Trafigura will retain a 20% interest in its assets and jointly own the new company, Buckeye Texas Partners, that will own and operate the assets divested by Trafigura.

In the deal, Buckeye gains a deep-water, high volume marine terminal located on the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, a condensate splitter and LPG storage complex in Corpus Christi, and three crude oil and condensate gathering facilities in the Eagle Ford shale. All of the assets are supported by 7- to 10-year minimum volume throughput, storage and tolling agreements with Trafigura.

Buckeye Texas Partners will invest appoximately $240-million - $270-million on improvements to the system, increasing its liquid petroleum products storage capacity to 5.6-million barrels. A 50,000 barrel per day condensate splitter is currently under construction and is anticipated to be completed by mid-2015.

Read more at buckeye.com