Energy

ConocoPhillips tanker carrying Alaska crude oil headed to S. Korea

An oil tanker left Valdez on Friday with a crude oil shipment bound not for the West Coast of the United States but for South Korea, the first export shipment of Alaska oil in a decade, according to Genscape, which operates a vessel tracking business providing market information to traders.

Genscape said the Polar Discovery, owned by ConocoPhillips, is expected to arrive Oct. 10 at Yeosu, the home of the fourth largest refinery in the world.

ConocoPhillips on Monday confirmed the shipment to Asia.

"This will enable the state of Alaska and ConocoPhillips to potentially realize a higher value for this important natural resource," the company said in a statement.

The oil company said terms of the deal are confidential and that future shipments would be "primarily determined by market conditions and in part by tanker availability."

The U.S. Energy Information Agency says that while oil exports from Alaska have been allowed since 1996, there have been none since 2004.

Matt Fox, a ConocoPhillips vice president, told stock analysts a year ago that "we do have the flexibility if we want to exercise it to take [Alaska] cargoes to Asia."

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He said it would depend "on the differential that we're seeing to Asian prices versus West Coast prices, obviously."

He said as time goes by, "we'll see if that's the flexibility we need to exercise."

Dermot Cole

Former ADN columnist Dermot Cole is a longtime reporter, editor and author.

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