Business View Magazine | December 2020

129 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 BLUEWING MA INSTREAM Bluewing began its operations with the purchase of seven storage tanks from a Brownsville operation through an acquisition. “There were about 50,000 barrels of storage there, which is very minimum,” says Malone, “We started a new project in the fall of 2019, which we called our Phase Two, looking at an additional 250,000 barrels with a fully automated truck rack. We’ve now got that project completed. We have since procured an additional 30-acre lease at the port and kicked off an approximately $100 million project there; construction is underway. Right now, we are sitting at about 1.2 million barrels contracted, and another 1.7 million barrels approved, which are currently under construction. So, we are essentially doubling the size of our footprint that we’ve got down south. And then, in addition to that, we’ve got 2.9 million barrels under development. All within the port of Brownsville.” Bluewing has also more than doubled the size of their workforce, with 16 employees at the industrial site in Brownsville and 12 in the back office and operations headquartered in Houston. There are certainly several factors propelling that growth. However, one cannot deny that proximity to the Mexican border is chief among them. When the fuel industry in Mexico was deregulated it became possible for them to buy from the United States and since Bluewing is just a few miles from the border it makes a very seamless supply chain going back and forth. “We don’t really sell anything,” says Malone, “we are the middleman. Most of our customers are big trading outfits. A lot of the end-users, like the big gas stations and airports, can’t buy fuel straight from the refinery, so they buy it from a trader. The traders are purchasing the diesel and the gasoline and the jet fuel and, once they buy it, they need a place to store it. So, they lease storage with us. It is then barged, shipped, trucked, or railed to us. Then they drive up across the border and get it. So, with us being so close to the border these truck drivers can make one or two trips a day back and forth to our facility.” Vice President of Project Management. Danny Malone