According to Bloomberg, a tanker of Canadian crude oil was shipped from Vancouver to Alaska for the first time in at least a decade.
The Trans Mountain pipeline that expanded recently, opened up new export opportunities. The cargo of 466,000 barrels of oil left on a tanker from Vancouver on 1 October and arrived ten days later in Nikisi, Alaska, Bloomberg reports. The cargo went to the Marathon Kenai refinery and marks the first such shipment in US Customs data going back to 2014.
As stated by Bloomberg, only five international tanker shipments of crude have gone to Nikisi in the past four years, including two from Argentina this year and two from Russia in 2021 making the canadian shipment unusual.
Earlier this year, the Trans Mountain pipeline began expansion operations, increasing the line’s capacity and by extension, the exports to refineries on the US West Coast and in Asia. Tankers have left Vancouver for China, South Korea, Brunei and India, among other locations.
