* Asian demand for US crude surges as Iran war disrupts

Middle East supplies

* Sentinel's Texas GulfLink project backed by US-Japan

funding

(Adds details on the US exports in second and last paragraphs,

background on export projects in paragraph 8, 9)

By Arathy Somasekhar and Vallari Srivastava

May 5 (Reuters) - Oil transportation and storage company

Sentinel Midstream said on Tuesday it would immediately begin

construction of its deepwater oil export project off the Texas

coast, marking the first development of a large-scale export

project in the United States in years.

While the construction of the project would take years, it

commences at a time when the United States has become a net

exporter of crude oil for the first time since World War Two as

the war in Iran has increased European and Asian demand for

American oil.

U.S. President Donald Trump vowed last year to accelerate

approvals of energy infrastructure projects to bolster the oil

and gas industry and expand the country's production.

Sentinel's Texas GulfLink project was issued a license, a major

step in the permitting process, in February. The Trump

administration also said then that Japan would invest in the

$2.1 billion Texas GulfLink facility.

Sentinel will lead the development of Texas GulfLink,

overseeing construction, commercial operations, and long-term

management of the terminal, the Dallas-based company said in a

statement, adding that the funding provided under the U.S.-Japan

Trade Agreement underscores continued international confidence

in U.S. energy infrastructure and supports the expansion of

American crude oil exports to global markets.

The offshore project, set to be situated about 30 miles off

Freeport, Texas, aims to be able to fully load a supertanker

with about 2 million barrels of oil in a day.

Currently only one U.S. port, the Louisiana Offshore Oil

Port, can fully load supertankers. Other facilities can only

load a supertanker partially, requiring them to use smaller

ships to ferry crude to the larger vessel to fill it, adding to

shipping costs.

The last proposed U.S. deepwater project - Enterprise Products

Partners' Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT) - stalled last

year as it did not receive enough customer interest.

Enterprise had blamed regulatory delays under the previous

Biden administration and a shift in global oil flows after

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which pushed U.S. vessels more to

Europe instead of Asia, which were primarily geared to using

supertankers that would load at these deepwater ports.

However, the recent war in Iran has starved Asian oil

companies of oil from the Middle East, forcing them to turn to

U.S. crude. U.S. exports of oil to Asia touched a record 2.31

million barrels per day in April, and overtook shipments to

Europe.