Comments from the media on US oil exports

Bloomberg, Lift the Ban on US Oil Exports, “by increasing exports even as it continues importing oil, the US can exercise maximum flexibility in world oil markets. It can keep US oil flowing, encouraging further exploration and drilling. And it can help maintain relatively stable gasoline prices, because these are largely determined by world markets.”

Boston Herald, It’s Time To End Crude Oil Exports Ban, “it really is time to end the prohibition. It never made much sense except to allow politicians to argue that they had done something for American consumers…Exporting crude can preserve, even increase, jobs here and improve the US balance of payments…Protectionism can’t work for long and shouldn't be tried.”

Chicago Tribune, Lift the US ban on oil exports, “like free trade in general, selling American oil overseas would be good for our economy. It would make the oil market more efficient, encourage a build out of the US energy network and stabilise prices over time for consumers…That additional business would translate into job creation as the oil industry invested in refineries and transportation networks to handle the light, high quality crude being produced domestically…The ban does nothing to keep domestic gasoline prices lower…The best outcome for US consumers would be a further boom in US oil production, resulting in exports that drive down global oil prices and thereby dampen fuel costs here.”

Greeley Tribune, US Should Allow Crude Oil Exports, “exporting more oil and gas will create more jobs for Americans and go a long way toward balancing the trade deficit…It certainly makes sense to export what we don’t need domestically to stabilise the global economy by helping keep energy costs down worldwide.”

John Kemp, Reuters Analyst, “Energy Secretary Moniz was simply stating the obvious when he noted that circumstances have changed and the controls and might deserve a review…The ban ensures domestic crude oil prices remain below world levels because producers cannot arbitrage the difference. But no such restrictions apply to refined products, so the price paid by US consumers for gasoline, heating oil and diesel is linked to world levels.”

David Nicklaus, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the booming US energy industry is on pace to produce more oil than Saudi Arabia by next year, but it can’t sell a drop of that crude overseas…Disco music, wide lapels and other 1970s artefacts have been out of fashion for a long time. It’s time for that era’s energy policy to join them on the scrap heap of history.”

Wall Street Journal, Exporting American Oil, “opponents of exporting oil claim that lifting the ban would raise US gasoline prices, but that misunderstands that oil is a global market. US pump prices would continue to rise or fall with world oil prices regardless of exports. But lifting the ban would lead to more domestic production, which means more jobs in oil drilling and services and everything that goes along with such growth…the best protection for America’s energy supply is more domestic production that exports would induce…The oil export ban is an example of self defeating resource nationalism that hurts US investment and the living standards of American workers. It was a bad idea in the 1970s, and today it is merely one more obstacle to America’s energy renaissance.”

Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post, “by all logic, we should be working to sustain the boom. We aren’t, and therein lies a classic example of how good policy is held hostage to bad politics and public relations. What would promote continued exploration is a lifting of the current US ban on exporting crude oil. Let producers sell into the world market.”

Washington Post, The US’s Crude Oil Policy, “in the deeply interconnected global oil market, in which borders matter less then many people think, the obvious solution is to allow oil companies to ship the light crude to refineries suited for processing it, supporting US profits and US jobs in the process, and to tolerate imports of crude oil that US refineries can handle…The export ban was a desperate ploy in the 1970s to control commodities markets amid spikes in oil prices induced by OPEC. Keeping it in place now is an economically incoherent policy, particularly when removing it would encourage an industry that is transforming the fortunes of large swaths of the nation. Congress should lift the ban entirely.”

Edited from an API report by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/refining/29052015/media-export-comments/