Rare shipment of US oil goes to South Africa

A shipment of US oil is headed to South Africa for the first time in two years, destined for a Glencore-owned refinery in Cape Town, which has resumed operations after an explosion in 2020. The light sweet oil tanker Sonangol Porto Amboim left Corpus Christi, Texas on May 16 bound for Saldanha Bay on the west coast of South Africa. South Africa gets most of its oil from West and Central Africa and Saudi Arabia, according to Kpler data. But competitive US crude prices and changes in oil flows since the Russian invasion of Ukraine have opened up new markets.

The last shipment of US oil went to South Africa in May 2021, US customs data showed. The 850,000-barrel West Texas Light shipment was bought by Swiss commodities trader Glencore. Glencore’s majority-owned company Astron Energy resumed production at its 100,000 barrels-per-day capacity refinery in Cape Town, nearly three years after a deadly explosion shut down operations and killed two workers. Astron, which has the second-largest fuel retail network in southern Africa, sources its oil from tankers unloading in Saldanha Bay and pipelines the oil to the Cape Town refinery.

Tags: Glencore,South Africa,US Oil Exports,United States


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