Canadian Crude Goes to Alaska as New Pipeline Shakes Up Exports

(Bloomberg) -- A tanker of Canadian crude was shipped from Vancouver to Alaska for the first time in at least 10 years as the recently expanded Trans Mountain pipeline opens up new export opportunities. 

The cargo of 466,000 barrels of oil left on a tanker from Vancouver on Oct. 1 and arrived 10 days later in Nikisi, Alaska, according to the Vortexa tanker-tracking service. That’s the first such shipment in US Customs data stretching back to 2014. The cargo went to the Marathon Kenai refinery, Vortexa analyst Rohit Rathod said in an email. 

The expanded Trans Mountain pipeline — which carries crude from Canada’s oil sands to a port near Vancouver — began operation earlier this year, bringing the line’s capacity up to almost 900,000 barrels a day and increasing exports to refineries on the US West Coast and in Asia. Tankers have since left Vancouver for China, South Korea, Brunei and India, among other locations.

Most of the crude that’s gone from Vancouver to the US travels south to California or Washington State. The shipment to Alaska, a major oil-producing state in the US, is unusual not just because it originated from Canada. 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. 

--With assistance from Lucia Kassai.

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