USA edges closer to lifting oil export ban

The latest development from the U.S. government suggests that the 40-year-old USA crude oil export ban could be lifted.

She said Democrats are “curious” to look more closely at the renewable energy tax incentives and whether they’ll offset the environmental impact of increased oil exports. The move was favored by Republican lawmakers and oil industry leaders.

“Our goal all along was to make sure the oil-export ban did not turn into something like Keystone”, said Sen.

Critics of the ban say eliminating it would help keep the USA drilling boom alive by closing the gap which has existed for years between cheaper domestic crude prices and higher global rates, and also give US allies alternatives to Russian Federation and OPEC for their oil supplies. Oil Change International wrote the first report on the risk of lifting the crude export ban way back in 2013, and projected the increase in the price of oil in the USA that would result. The largest independent refiner in the country does not drill for oil, unlike ExxonMobil or Shell, leaving it without a business segment that will be more profitable after the ban is lifted.

Most experts don’t believe overturning the export ban will significantly move oil prices, which remain at their lowest levels in years.

With the end of the ban, all 9.2 million barrels produced in the United States a day and the 490.7 million barrels stockpiled commercially are available for export.

“We have the best technology, the best oil and over time we will drive out Russian oil we will drive out Saudi, Iranian” Barton said. “Ultimately the US consumer will pay a higher price, and the planet will have more pollution”.

According to the Department of Energy, the United States could become a net exporter of crude oil in the next decade or so.

Taylor Woods is up about 20 percent for the year through mid-December, helped by mostly bearish bets on crude since January, people familiar with its trades said.

The prospect of unfettered exports offers is a boon commodity trading houses such as Vitol Group and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd, 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.

The deal was hammered out in secret talks among congressional leaders over two weeks.

“The Democratic leadership traded this ban for a small extension of taxes that support renewable energy”, said Wenonah Hauter, executive director at Food and Water Watch.

In addition to the lifting of the oil export ban, included in the 2016 spending bill is funding for national laboratories in New Mexico, as well as, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

Mr. Hamm, whose company has one of the biggest footprints in the North Dakota oilfields, argued that since oil refineries were allowed to export their product, oil producers should be allowed to as well.