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US lifts ban on oil exports
The lifting of the ban on the export of crude oil from the United States will lead to lower consumer prices and stimulate the growth of oil production. Such a statement was made by the general director of ConocoPhillips R. Lance.
Most US refineries are designed to process heavy sour crude from Canada and South America, while shale regions produce lighter, lower sweet crude, for which US refineries are not well adapted. Now the level of oil production in the United States has reached its highest level since 1995, mainly due to the use of new technologies that allow extracting oil where it previously was not profitable.
According to him, the United States has 345 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil resources from shale. Refining light crude oil abroad will be more cost-effective for domestic consumers because it will be cheaper to use existing plants abroad than to make capital investments to increase production in the domestic market. It should be noted that the start of the supply of American oil abroad would have an impact on world’s oil prices, mainly, on Brent, the North Sea standard. It will have less impact on the oil trading system between Europe, West Africa, and North America. Even Shell, BP, and Vitol turned to the authorities for a license to export oil produced in the United States, which has been effectively banned for 100 years. The ban allows preventing a large increase in oil prices.
World resonance
The first batch of oil was sent to Italy. The buyer is the Swiss company Vitol Group. The ban on oil exports in the country operated for 40 years. The US Congress agreed to withdraw the ban on oil exports. The United States sent a shipment of oil abroad for the first time after the export ban was lifted for 40 years, the Bloomberg news agency reported. The shipment follows to Italy.
Theo T tanker was set off on Thursday from a port in Texas, said NuStar spokesperson Mary Rose Brown. According to her, cargo with a consignment of oil and condensate from oil wells of ConocoPhillips in South Texas is heading to Italy. The buyer is the Swiss company Vitol Group – one of the largest oil traders in the world.