U.S. energy officials released a study Thursday concluding the global Brent oil benchmark is more important in determining U.S. gasoline prices than the domestic benchmark, in the government’s first findings designed to inform the debate over lifting the decades-old ban on U.S. oil exports. The report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration was the first in a series of studies to be released on the issue of relaxing U.S. export restrictions, and it stopped short of making any policy findings or recommendations. Still, the initial findings that domestic gasoline prices are derived from the global market could lay the groundwork for an eventual effort to end the export ban, on the basis that adding additional supplies to the world market through exports could lead to lower prices at the pump.