Montreal has emerged as an export base for Western Canadian heavy sour crudes as prospects to construct new pipelines to the British Columbia coast, Eastern Canada and U.S. fade. Suncor, owner and operator of the 137,000 b/d Montreal East refinery in Quebec, loaded 35,000 mt of Western Canadian Select (WCS) crude from Montreal East onboard the Panamax tanker Sparto Sunday, according to market sources. Sparto is bound for the Motiva Norco refinery in Louisiana. This is believed to be the first time Western Canadian crudes are being shipped from Montreal into the U.S. Gulf Coast. Suncor, in addition to its tankage at its Montreal East refinery, has leased tankage at Kildair’s Sorel-Tracy terminal in eastern Montreal.
