PetroChina, Unipec to Lift 2 mln bbls U.S. crude in December

Chinese state-owned oil traders PetroChina and Unipec have chartered ships to load more than 2 million barrels of U.S. crude oil in December, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

The shipments come on top of nearly 3 million barrels that BP has sent to Asia as oil traders sell growing supplies of cheap U.S. shale oil to the region of the world that consumes the most crude.

Analysts expect U.S. shale production to increase next year after an agreement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia to cut output from January lifted oil prices.

Traders took advantage of an arbitrage between cheaper U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude and the global benchmark Brent and low freight rates.

A narrowing of the spread between Brent and Middle East Dubai crude <DUB-EFS-1M> to the smallest in a year also made U.S. oil more competitive than similar Middle East grades.

PetroChina has chartered Suezmax London Spirit, which loaded some crude in the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area (GOLA), Texas, earlier this month, according to the sources and shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon.

Unipec, the trading arm of Asia's largest refiner Sinopec , is expected to load 2 million barrels of U.S. crude onto very large crude carrier (VLCC) Xin Han Yang next week, one of the sources said.

It will be Unipec's second shipment of U.S. crude in three months. In October, the company loaded oil on VLCC Overseas Rosalyn which is expected to reach the southern Chinese port of Zhanjiang on Dec 31. (Reporting by Chen Aizhu