The first tankers have reportedly been booked to lift cargoes from Canada’s newly opened Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline project.
Platts reported a rare deal involving Suncor fixing the 115,500-dwt Dubai Angel (built 2010) on subjects from Vancouver to China on 17 May.
The ship will lift 80,000 tonnes of crude, with the charterer paying a lump sum of $3.5m.
Spot market activity is ticking upwards due to the new flow of cargoes to the port, after the 590,000 barrel per day extension opened for business on Wednesday.
A second unnamed tanker has been lined up for a Vancouver loading.
Suncor has been contacted for comment.
The Dubai Angel, operated by Emarat Maritime of Dubai, left El Segundo in California on 29 April and is due in Vancouver on 17 May, AIS data showed on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the $34bn pipeline’s operating company, Trans Mountain Corp, confirmed that tankers will not begin loading until mid-May.
An extra pipeline has been added to an existing 1,147-km line that runs from Edmonton, Alberta to the coast of British Columbia.
The terminal can load up to 34 aframax vessels a month.
New berths
Three new berths have been created at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, Vancouver to cope with the increased export capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 bpd, TradeWinds has reported.
Aframaxes are the largest tankers that can be serviced at the terminal.
US broker Poten & Partners believes the Canadian oil will compete with Russian and Middle Eastern crudes in Asia, as well as US Gulf Coast exports.
India’s Reliance Industries has bought 2m barrels of Canadian crude from Shell for July delivery, its first purchase from TMX, Reuters reported.
The four 500,000-barrel cargoes will reverse-lighter to a VLCC and then deliver to Sikka in northwest India, said data analyst Kpler.
