ConocoPhillips will supply the first cargo of U.S. shale oil to be exported since a 40-year ban on such shipments was lifted less than two weeks ago.
The cargo will be made up of crude and a type of ultra-light oil known as condensate from wells in the Eagle Ford Shale formation in south Texas, the Houston-based company said Wednesday. Conoco Phillips expects the shipment to finish loading at NuStar Energy Inc.’s Corpus Christi, Texas, terminal Thursday.
The cargo will be sold to merchant trader Vitol Group, which last week announced plans for a separate 600,000-barrel shipment of domestic crude that will load from Enterprise Products Partners LP’s Houston terminal during the first week of January. The producer of the oil for the first cargo was not identified.
Overseas demand for U.S. crude is expected to remain muted because of a worldwide glut that has pushed oil prices to the lowest in more than a decade.
A 64 percent surge in American oil production during the past five years driven by technological breakthroughs in shale drilling has compounded an oversupply by OPEC nations, Russia and other producers.
Until the export ban was lifted Dec. 18, refiners this year had been willing to pay an average premium of about $5 a barrel for Brent crude, the international benchmark, over the price of West Texas Intermediate oil. Since the prohibition ended, that premium has disappeared.
