U.S. Oil Export Ban Seen Weakening Rather Than Dying By Lynn Doan - TopicsExpress

U.S. Oil Export Ban Seen Weakening Rather Than Dying By Lynn Doan Jul 18, 2014 The four-decade-old ban on most crude exports from the U.S., now the world’s largest producer, will be weakened bit by bit as government rulings allow exceptions, say energy analysts including IHS Inc. The Commerce Department’s permission for Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD) to ship abroad ultra-light oil known as condensate foreshadows a chain of incremental actions that will chip away at the restriction until it’s obsolete. As much as 1.2 million barrels a day may be freed for export on the recent rulings alone. The ban was passed by Congress in 1975 in response to the Arab oil embargo that cut global supplies, quadrupled crude prices and created gasoline shortages in the U.S. at a time when the country’s own crude production was shrinking. Now that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are unleashing record volumes of light oil from U.S. shale formations and a glut of crude is pooling along the Gulf Coast, federal policy makers are facing increasing pressure to ease the restriction. “They’re going to try and get around the export ban in a lot of ways, case by case, without lifting it,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst for the London-based research firm Energy Aspects Ltd., said by telephone from London July 16. “There are a lot of things they can do to alleviate this light crude overhang.”