World likes the taste of Texas oil

​CORPUS CHRISTI – Texas crude oil is being shipped worldwide at ever-higher rates as foreign markets get used to the taste of light sweet crude.

Port Corpus Christi, a major refining center on the U.S. Gulf Coast, is becoming a major hub for U.S. crude oil exports.​

More than 70 percent of the crude oil moved into Port Corpus Christi in October 2017 was exported, according the Jarl Pedersen, the Port’s chief commercial officer.

Since Congress lifted a 40-year oil export ban in 2015, exports have grown as high as 1.8 million barrels a day in October 2017, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Two projects currently underway will help the port increase exports in the coming years;

• a new $809 mi​llion bridge over the port’s entrance is under construction; and,

• an agreement to start a $327 million dredging project to deepen and widen the ship channel was recently signed.

The projects will allow very large crude carriers with a capacity of upward of 2 million barrels of oil to enter the port empty and leave fully laden.

Both projects are expected to be done by 2021.​