NorthAmOil: Canada’s Asian oil exports to grow

Asia oil imports from Canada’s Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) are ramping up, and are expected to increase starting in September.

The TMX pipeline, which opened on May 1, has been altering global trade routes for heavy sour crude especially because of US sanctions on Venezuela’s heavy oil.

The first shipment of crude from the recently expanded pipeline had already been destined for an unnamed buyer China. In March it emerged that Sinochem of China had bought one of the first crude cargoes shipped through the pipeline.

The 1,147-km pipeline will triple the amount of crude to 890,000 barrels that can be exported from the oilsands of landlocked Alberta across the Rockies to British Columbia for water transport on the Pacific Ocean.

Trans Mountain runs from the oilsands near Edmonton across the Rockies to British Columbia.