First to sea: ConocoPhillips and NuStar claim they have taken the lead in the race to export the first U.S. crude oil since Congress lifted the 40-year-old oil export ban, FuelFix.com reports. The two companies say they plan to finish loading the Eagle Ford crude cargo on Thursday at the Port of Corpus Christi. The announcement seemingly puts them in the lead over Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners, which announced last week that it will load 600,000 barrels of domestic light crude oil to Houston and load it onto a tanker in the first week of 2016. Houston-based ConocoPhillips says it will sell the crude oil to Switzerland-based Vitol, an international trading company also buying the crude from Enterprise. San Antonio-based NuStar was contracted to transport and load the crude oil in Corpus Christi. FuelFix.com has the full story.
Someone profits: The most destructive oil crash in a generation is giving ship owners a billion-dollar windfall, Bloomberg News reports. With the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries abandoning output limits in a drive for market share, ships that carry as much as 2 million barrels a trip are in demand to haul crude from the Middle East to Asia and North America. While oil prices fell about 35% in 2015, average earnings for these carriers jumped to $67,366 a day, the most since at least 2009, according to Clarkson PLC, the world’s largest shipbroker. “The stars are aligned for us right now,” Nikolas Tsakos, the chief executive officer of Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd., told Bloomberg in an interview the media outlet’s New York offices, adding that falling oil prices will likely stimulate demand and cargoes next year. Read the full story.
Get it moving: Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners says it has completed and begun operating its 270-mile Aegis ethane pipeline running from its Mont Belvieu complex near Houston through south Louisiana to Napoleonville. FuelFix.com reports the 20-inch pipeline can transport 400,000 barrels of ethane a day. The ethane is used to make ethylene, the primary building block of many plastics. Enterprise says it has already contracted for 360,000 barrels of ethane transportation a day that will ramp up over four years. The pipeline was completed in segments going to Beaumont and Lake Charles before crossing most of Louisiana, and serves as feedstock for more than 20 petrochemical complexes along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas. Read the full story.
