The ratings on petroleum pipeline LOOP LLC are supported by separate throughput and deficiency agreements with its five owners, all of which are large, solidly investment-grade oil companies. LOOP owns and operates a deepwater oil port 18 miles off the Louisiana coast that provides offloading for deep-draft oil tankers that cannot enter shallow inland ports. LOOP also owns 46 million barrels of onshore oil storage in a set of salt-dome caverns 25 miles inland, connected by a 48-inch pipeline. Daily throughput capacity is 1.2 million barrels to 1.4 million barrels. It is expanding these facilities to accommodate future volume increases expected from tie-ins through LOOP, of large deepwater developments in the Gulf of Mexico. The throughput and deficiency agreements do
