Bazz, I repeat: I don't understand the purpose of this article. Who is proposing that the USA should export oil?

Australia's refineries are closing because it's cheaper to refine the oil overseas. But we have the ability to synthesise petrol and diesel from gas, or from coal, or from biomass.

There are even two known ways to synthesise liquid fuel directly from CO2 and water, though of course they both require a lot of energy. Those aren't commercialized yet, but it's certainly an option for Australia's future, though I expect the first commercial applications to be in Antarctica.

‘morning Arthur,

I really don’t know what to make of your article. There seem to be so many omissions of fact and misdirection that even as a fossil fuel layperson, I am aware of many things you have not taken into account.

I guess the first would be political. With both the XL pipeline and the restrictions on some US oil exports up for debate, the Democrats and the Greens have been trumped by the Republican Senate.

Then we have Geo-politics. With the EU locked into a disastrous renewable framework and paying 60% more for gas than the US domestic market, thanks to Gazprom. The EU is exporting industrial capacity at the same time as the USA is repatriating it’s industrial capacity away from overseas “low labor cost” markets back to a US base of a “low energy cost” market.

You also failed to discuss the US domestic market in terms of types of oil. Some types are in demand but not produced in sufficient volume, whilst other types are domestically produced in volume but not in high demand. The thrust of changes to export legislation is to allow export of sufficient low value categories to offset the high value imports and to fund infrastructure.

You might also have mentioned that some oil producers already have licenses to export both oil and gas, particularly to Canada. Such oil companies win twice. They buy very cheap and sell at high margins. They also benefit from being able to offset infrastructure costs against export markets.

The bulk of domestic producers enjoy no such advantage and I suspect do not want to be the “biggest” producers, they just want to have access to export markets, to make money, to threaten competitors, to offset against imports and most importantly, have a level playing field domestically.

As such the US has no desire for global prices to rise short term.

So is your allegiance to the bulk of the domestic oil Co’s that are disadvantaged or to the privileged few who already export?

You’re not a Democrat by any chance?

Hmmm Aiden, I answered your question but it is not here.
Try again;
It is the oil companies mainly I think the smaller ones.
They want to pick up the difference between Brent & WTI prices.
The importers have to pay the Brent price so as far as the US as a
whole is concerned it would be a loosing proposition.
There is some complication in that simple explanation in that a
percentage of the proposed export is not necessarily the same as the imports.
Oils is not oils !