Leaders of prominent US shale producers came together on Apr. 21 to drive home a point that’s emerged as a primary theme during this year’s IHS CERAWeek in Houston: The urgent need to lift the export ban on US crude oil. “It’s time to give the green light to US oil exports,” stated John Hess, chief executive officer of Hess Corp. , during an upstream panel discussion alongside two other prominent US-based chief executives. Hess emphasized that the US already exports high quantities of petroleum products—3.8 million b/d in 2014 according to the US Energy Information Administration—so why not crude? “Mexico and Canada export crude,” he said. “Why not the US?” Harold Hamm, chief executive officer of Continental Resources Inc. , echoed those sentiments, but thinks “it’s going to take a while to change the mindset of Americans to one of scarcity to […]