Homebound U.S. Crude Missing Out, Even in This Market, Study Finds

摘要

Even in a depressed global oil market, keeping U.S. crude production tied up at home imposes a significant cost on U.S. producers, according to a Rice University researcher. Further, exporting crude would not raise domestic gasoline prices but would improve national energy security, he said. “We find evidence that the export ban already presents a binding constraint on the domestic market, and has done so for a while...[E]ven in a low international crude oil price environment the importance of addressing the export ban is very high, with discounts reaching as high as $8 per barrel in a $50 world, depending on the quality of the crude oil that is being produced and marketed,” wrote Ken Medlock, a fellow in energy resource economics at Rice.