Texas City hosts first oil supertanker

HOUSTON — A 2 million-barrel-carrying supertanker arrived for the first time at a jetty in Texas City, Texas, as surging U.S. oil output drives up incentives to export.

The Nave Quasar, a Very Large Crude Carrier, signaled from the jetty at the Gulf of Mexico terminal on Friday morning, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

The tanker is being brought into Enterprise Products Partners’ terminal to determine measurements for future supertanker loadings, at least of partial cargoes, according to a person familiar with the matter. Nave Quasar will not load any supplies for shipment, the person said. The site’s water depth needs to be increased to about 76 feet from 45 feet to enable supertankers to fully load. The company said it was too premature to discuss the project.

While profits from shipping U.S. oil overseas are surging on paper, the logistics of shipping remain a challenge in a country that was set up for decades as an importer. The price of crude at Houston earlier this week tumbled to a record discount of more than $4 a barrel relative to Brent, the international benchmark. Freight costs on a very large crude carrier for delivery to Asia would probably be less than half that, highlighting the potential return for companies with the ability to get oil onto ships.

Shipments on supertankers have proven difficult from U.S. Gulf Coast ports where waters can be too shallow once carriers are fully loaded, meaning cargoes move on smaller ships. It still remains to be seen how much oil Nave Quasar will actually load. Another carrier, the Anne, tested at the Port of Corpus Christi last May but didn’t collect a cargo.