The latest development from the USA government suggests that the 40-year-old United States crude oil export ban could be lifted.
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For example, oil prices and energy stocks skidded Wednesday after the USA government said oil stockpiles grew 4.8 million barrels last week. Domestically produced crude might be despatched to Canada, and sure varieties of flippantly processed oil are open to exports.
North Dakota may finally have the opportunity to export our quality crude to our nation’s allies, lending greater stability not only to oil and fuel prices, but to global politics.
The prospect of unfettered exports offers is a boon commodity trading houses such as Vitol Group and Mercuria Energy Group, which have built up their oil trading desks and invested in ports, pipelines and export facilities even as a slump in commodities prices to the lowest in 16 years hurts other parts of their businesses.
But recent changes in the world market have shifted Helms’ outlook, and he’s now projecting that lifting the ban could affect Bakken oil prices by $2 a barrel.
United States oil exports are “not going to happen Monday, but within a week or two, you’re going to see contracts be developed and a system come into place”, Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and the House’s chief advocate for ending the export restrictions, said in an interview Thursday.
Senator John Hoeven announced that the new year-end 2016 funding bill that is on track to pass Congress this week includes a provision he worked to include that repeals the decades-long ban on US crude oil exports. But when they do, oil companies that pushed for the change will be ready to reap the benefits.
More than a dozen independent oil companies, including Continental Resources and ConocoPhillips, have been arguing that unfettered oil exports would eliminate market distortions, stimulate the USA economy and boost national security.
Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute, a university think tank on the energy industry, said lifting the ban makes good sense politically and strategically.
Despite some claims that removing the ban will increase US energy production, Upton isn’t so sure since prices are so low.
Some U.S. refineries oppose oil exports, saying their business would be hit if crude oil is shipped overseas to be refined and warning that higher costs might be passed along to consumers. Back then, the conventional wisdom was that there is a finite quantity of oil in the world, and we pretty much knew where it was.
Scalise says the move could create as many as 5,000 jobs in Louisiana alone.
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USA shale drillers will soon be able to sell their oil all over the world. This despite the fact that a September 2014 poll for voters show a 68% support from Americans for keeping oil in the US.
