Supertankers carrying US oil to China

Fuel Fix:

The flood of U.S. oil exports stepped up a gear after the first fully laden supertanker recently sailed from an American port, alleviating a bottleneck that has limited overseas shipments.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, the only deep-water port in the U.S. able to handle the industry's biggest tankers, said it had successfully completed the first loading of a very large crude carrier. Shipping data compiled by Bloomberg show the tanker is the Saudi Arabian-owned Shaden, now heading to the Chinese port of Rizhao.

LOOP has been a vital piece of U.S. energy infrastructure for more than 30 years, handling oil imports from across the world as well as gathering crude pumped from deep-water deposits in the Gulf of Mexico. Since it started receiving oil in 1981, it has offloaded 10,200 tankers.

The Shaden, which is owned by the National Shipping Co. of Saudi Arabia and carries the flag of the kingdom, was the first VLCC to load oil at the port rather than discharge it.
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This is more evidence of the growth of US exports of oil as a result of increased energy production.  It also raises the question of whether new export facilities for the supertankers will be built along the Texas Gulf Coast.  Most of the exports from Texas now are from ports in Corpus Christi and Houston.