The first oil tanker of freely traded U.S. crude departed Thursday afternoon from the Port of Corpus Christi, about 160 miles north of the Texas border with Mexico.

ConocoPhillips Co. and NuStar Energy LP loaded the tanker with oil pumped from the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. The companies have skipped ahead of Enterprise Products Partners LP, which said last week that it expected to load the first oil export cargo in Houston during the first week of January.

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