WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Global merchant giant Vitol Group will move 600,000 barrels of unrefined crude from the United States to an overseas buyer next week in the first such shipment in 40 years, a US energy company told Sputnik on Tuesday.
"Our function as a mid-stream operator is to provide infrastructure such as pipeline and terminal services for the shipment," Enterprise Products Partners spokesperson Rick Rainey said.
Rainey explained that Vitol, a European-based energy and commodities company, will accept the oil from Enterprise at a Houston, Texas terminal in the first week of January 2016.
Enterprise stated the shipment will be the first of its kind since President Barack Obama signed a bill earlier in December repealing a ban on exports of unrefined oil that had been in place since the mid-1970s.
In response to an Arab oil embargo earlier in the decade, the US banned oil shipments to destinations outside of North America. Recent increases in oil production have produced a glut in parts of the United States, increasing pressure to end the ban.
