Ending the US ban on exports of crude oil would hurt refiners now profiting from low feedstock costs but help producers and consumers, says an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas . In a July report, Michael D. Plante, senior research economist in the bank’s Research Department, describes how transport constraints have created localized oversupply, lowering regional crude prices in relation to global prices of similar crudes. With the transportation system adjusting to new production from unconventional resources in the US interior, oversupply is developing rapidly on the US Gulf Coast. “If the export ban were not in place, this would not be a problem,” Plante writes. “The extra oil would be shipped to other countries with the appropriate refining capacity for light crude. Crude oil prices in the US then would reflect global prices.” Complicating the problem is a quality mismatch. Many […]