Texas Takes Aim at Crude Oil Export Ban

Problems starting to occur with the "Texas miracle" so-called.

With a glut of crude oil filling up pipelines and storage tanks and pushing down U.S. oil prices, Texas lawmakers are calling on Washington to lift its 40-year-old ban on crude exports. 

“If we want to sustain the 'Texas miracle' and lead the way to energy security, we have to compete in the international market,” Commissioner David Porter told lawmakers.

The "Texas miracle" was nothing more than business entities in that state riding on the back of OPEC's cartel pricing operations for the last 5 years; lifting Texas' real terms of trade with the rest of the country and screwing the rest of us in the U.S. who live in areas that only consume petroleum products and don't produce petroleum ... some "miracle".

They have been enjoying a huge monopoly rent paid by the rest of us for 5 years, I for one am glad to see this period coming to a close and petroleum prices way down as the US and Canada have been working to increase North American production by millions of barrels per day over this period.

And this guy is wrong here, the "miracle" was due not because they were "competing" it was because they were NOT "competing" and riding on the back of OPEC cartel global pricing practices.

This guy says he now wants to "compete".  If they do this the oil price will collapse even further as any current monopoly rent left in the unit price is going to be reduced even more and the oil dependent nations south of the border will see further reductions in their real terms of trade creating the potential for a regional humanitarian crisis down there with the state of Texas right on the front lines.

This is a short-sighted policy for which they are advocating and not in the entire nation's best interest.

This refiner is sharp and can see right thru this blatant self-interest:

“The unlimited export of crude is not in the national interest,” Bill Day, spokesman for San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp., the country's largest oil refiner, told Fuel Fix in January. “We’re not so sure who would support such a thing, unless you were a producer and wanted to get a higher price for what you are producing.”

We'll see how this goes. it will have further significant implications for the US current account imo if they drop the export ban.