CNN, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other world news talking about one thing since yesterday: the United States lifted a 40-year ban on oil exports. The move was favored by Republican lawmakers and oil industry leaders. What does this mean for the world economy?
“We have the best technology, the best oil and over time we will drive out Russian oil, we will drive out Saudi, Iranian,” Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said in an interview with Bloomberg. “It puts the United States in the driver’s seat of energy policy worldwide. It is a huge victory.”
The move to abolish the ban on oil exports comes as crude prices have plummeted to some of its lowest points in years and technology has unlocked vast, formerly unreachable reservoirs of oil, creating an overabundance of U.S. oil. West Texas Intermediate crude was selling for less than $37 a barrel Wednesday, down from more $100 last year.
Experts conclude that low oil prices at the moment stop producers from working at full capacity and produce the maximum amount of raw material. But the removal of long-term export ban opens up new frontiers for the US oil magnates who will be able to supply oil to the world market already on higher prices. By all indications expected upward trend in raw material prices per barrel. Тhe World Economists believe the investment in the oil and gas complex of the United States is the most rational action for today.
“Oil from South Texas or North Dakota’s Bakken shale is a lighter crude that could fetch better prices on the world market than from U.S. refineries, which are optimized for heavier crude,” said Thomas Tunstall, senior research director at the University of Texas at San Antonio’ Institute for Economic Development.
Allowing exports would create an estimated 630,000 new jobs and add an additional $165 billion each year to the GDP for the next six years, according to a report last year from the Aspen Institute.
