Oil Industry Starts Push to End Ban on Exports of Crude Oil

The oil and gas industry is seizing on recent comments by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to push for an end to the United States’ 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports.

The American Petroleum Institute says the U.S. energy boom has made the ban irrelevant, citing Energy Information Administration projections this week that domestic oil production would hit a near-record 9.5 million barrels per day by 2016.

“It is undeniable that the American energy revolution has rendered our energy export policies obsolete,” said Erik Milito, API’s upstream director.

The comments come after Moniz suggested that the U.S. should “relook” at the ban, which was imposed in response to the 1970s Arab oil embargo, which caused worldwide shortages.

“There are lots of issues in the energy space that deserve some new analysis and examination in the context of what is now an energy world that is no longer like the 1970s,” Moniz said at the Platts Global Energy Outlook Forum in New York.

Read more from this story HERE.