First US oil export in 40 years arrives France

After 40 years of restriction, the first US oil export has finally arrived France, having spent three weeks on the sea amidst fierce price wars.

The ‘Liquid American Freedom’, as named by the US congress energy and commerce committee members, arrived outside the French port of Fos Lavera at around 6am on Wednesday.

According to Financial Times, Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, is expected to unload the cargo at the port near Marseille, where it will then be carried by pipeline to target refineries.

The most likely destination is the Cressier refinery in Switzerland, trading sources say, but there is also a pipeline route to the Varo Energy joint venture’s plant in Bavaria.

Exports of US crude oil have been restricted since the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s, but the same was lifted in December as the country laboured to accommodate the largest oil plunge in recent times.

“The flows themselves are not substantial yet but this is only the start,” said Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix, a consultancy in Zug, Switzerland.

“US oil exports will ultimately be transformational for the industry, allowing not just higher exports of US shale but also other grades and Canadian oil.

“For traders it is a big opportunity, with the US set to not only export more but also import more.”

Prices have fallen over 70 percent in less than 20 months, with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) keeping up supply to frustrate high-cost sources US shale out of business.

All these is happening at a time when Nigeria’s Bonny Light is trading around $26 per barrel – $12 below the national benchmark of $38 in 2016.

The price of OPEC basket of thirteen crudes “stood at 23.85 dollars a barrel on Tuesday, compared with $23.58 the previous day,” OPEC secretariat calculations confirm.