Refners double down on US crude

摘要

Latin American refners nearly doubled their purchases of US crude last year, as the economics worked in their favour. US crude exports to Latin America jumped by 110,000 b/d to 215,000 b/d in January-November, boosting the region’s market share of US crude exports by 2.9 percentage points to 7.3pc over the period. Much of this is because of US shale output, which competes in Latin America with sweet Brazilian and west African crudes. US infrastructure projects helped boost US crude exports to more than 3mn b/d in the second half of last year.