China, Japan and South Korea are set to receive cargoes of oil imports from Canada's newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline in September, becoming the first Asian countries to benefit from the facility since it became operational in May. The expanded TMX pipeline will triple the flow of crude from landlocked Alberta to Canada's Pacific coast to 890,000 barrels per day bpd.
All the cargoes were sold at discounts of between $5 and $6 a barrel to ICE Brent. Meanwhile, Chinese private refiner Rongsheng Petrochemical has purchased two Canadian Access Western Blend AWB crude cargoes from ConocoPhillips NYSECOP and Vitol on top of another two AWB cargoes it bought via a tender. Cold Lake and AWB are heavy sour crude containing 3.5-4% sulfur and with API gravity of 21-22 degrees.