By Arathy Somasekhar

HOUSTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) -

Enterprise Products Partners ( EPD ) has not received enough

customer interest to commercialize its Sea Port Oil Terminal

(SPOT) crude export project, Jim Teague, the CEO of the pipeline

and storage operator, said on Tuesday.

"In order to build SPOT, we know what we need is volumes,

fees and terms... if we can't achieve these within a reasonable

amount of time, we will move on," Teague said in a post-earnings

conference call.

Enterprise's SPOT in 2022 became the first export terminal

project to receive a license from the U.S. maritime regulator

for a deepwater port that could load two supertankers, each of

which can carry up to 2 million barrels of oil at a time.

Teague blamed regulatory delays and Russia's 2022 invasion

of Ukraine, which rerouted oil flows, for the lack of interest

in the project, adding that the company will continue to promote

SPOT.

The project, one of four planned export facilities, is

currently the only one with regulatory permits.

"A lot has changed since we entered our SPOT application in

January 2019," Teague said.

Forecasters were predicting U.S. crude exports would climb

to between 7 million and 8 million barrels a day by 2024, and

that a majority of those would go to Asia on supertankers,

Teague said.

U.S. crude exports averaged around 4.1 million barrels in

the first 11 months of 2024, data from the Energy Information

Administration showed.

About 47% of U.S. crude exports went to Europe, ship

tracking data from Kpler showed, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine

led to higher demand from Europe. Asia's share of U.S. crude

exports declined to 38% in 2024 from 43% in 2019.

Crude to Europe can be shipped economically in smaller

tankers, while increased demand from Asia would have led to

higher usage of supertankers, the type that SPOT targeted for

its project.