Petroleum News: Single-hull tankers carry Siberian crude to western U.S.
BY KAY CASHMAN, PUBLISHER & EDITOR OF GREENING OF OIL
Originally appeared in Petroleum News
The following article ran in the June 11 edition of the weekly Petroleum News. Based in Anchorage, Alaska, Petroleum News is a sister publication to Greening of Oil.
The actions of the Obama administration to halt all offshore Alaska drilling and deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as it tightens regulations for the oil and gas industry is bolstering the prospects of yet another source of foreign crude imports for the United States, this time from Russia, a country with a less than sterling environmental and safety record.
Moreover, Siberian crude, like other foreign oil, is being transported to U.S. West Coast refineries in single-hull tankers that were outlawed in U.S. ports following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which demonstrated that double-hull vessels were needed to prevent oil spills in the case of a grounding or collision.
According to a July 6 Wall Street Journal report the Siberian crude is “challenging” domestically produced Alaska oil in the West Coast market which, depending on the refiner, is mixed with crude from Mexico, South America or the Middle East in a 20-40 percent blend.
In the space of the last few months Russian oil exports to the United States went from zero barrels per day to 100,000 bpd.
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