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(Reuters) - Mexican state oil firm Pemex expects imminent approval from the U.S. Commerce Department to allow it to swap up to 100,000 barrels of heavy crude for a similar amount of lighter U.S. oil, what could be the latest milestone toward loosening the four-decades old ban on exporting U.S. oil. "Our expectation is that it happens soon," Jose Manuel Carrera, CEO of Pemex's commercial arm P.M.I. Comercio Internacional, said in an interview Friday. "I would like to see the approval tomorrow, or I would have liked to see it yesterday, but the truth is that this is a permit...

An environmental review of a proposed Washington coal port will be delayed until 2017, one year after the analysis was scheduled to be completed. The delay comes after the project's developer, SSA Marine, submitted an updated plan for the Gateway Pacific Terminal to the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers. SSA Marine acquired more land in the area of the proposed dock and reconfigured its site plan, said Bob Watters, a company executive. The move will reduce the project's overall footprint by 17 percent and its impact on wetlands by 49 percent, he said. "From an environmental standpoint, we thought it...

Former Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday gave his support to lifting a decades-old ban on crude exports, calling it a “major error” to prevent U.S. oil from being shipped overseas. Perry, a likely candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said that if he won the White House, he would propel North America into the global energy business “in a big way.” “If energy is going to be used as a weapon, we need to have the largest arsenal,” Perry said at the discussion hosted by Bloomberg at the JW Marriott in downtown Houston on Tuesday. Most crude exports have...

Last month the White House submitted President Obama’s annual economic report to Congress. Nestled in the findings is a compelling case for lifting the country’s antiquated ban on natural gas exports. “An increase in U.S. exports of natural gas, and the resulting price changes, would have a number of mostly beneficial effects,” the report states, for domestic employment, geopolitical security, our energy industry and the environment. The report ticks off numerous benefits — “create jobs in the short run,” “lower natural gas prices around the world,” “promote the use of cleaner energy abroad” — that make clear the question is...

Lifting a 40-year-old U.S. ban on crude exports would create a wide range of jobs in the oil drilling supply chain and broader economy even in states that produce little or no oil, according to a report released on Tuesday. Some 394,000 to 859,000 U.S. jobs could be created annually from 2016 to 2030 by lifting the ban, according to the IHS report, titled: "Unleashing the Supply Chain: Assessing the Economic Impact of a U.S. crude oil free trade policy." Only 10 percent of the jobs would be created in actual oil production, while 30 percent would come from the...

WASHINGTON — Conservatives’ next disappointment will at least be a validation. The coming reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank will confirm their warnings about the difficulty of prying the government’s tentacles off what should be society’s private sphere. The bank, which exists to allocate credit by criteria other than the market’s preference for efficiency, mirrors the market-distorting policies of foreign governments. These policies favor those countries’ exports that compete with America’s. Much of what the bank does is supposedly to “level the playing field.” When Fred P. Hochberg, the bank’s chairman and president, defends it, an old joke comes to mind:...

Oil producers and their allies are looking beyond the nation’s capital in their quest to end the decades-old ban on exporting U.S. crude. While Congress and the Obama administration deliberate the issue, state lawmakers in oil-flush North Dakota and Texas aren’t waiting to act and instead have advanced resolutions that take aim at the trade restrictions. The North Dakota Senate on Tuesday approved its resolution urging Congress to lift the ban on crude exports and outlining its case for those foreign sales. The 1970s-era trade restrictions, inspired by the OPEC oil embargo, were designed to preserve domestic price ceilings and...

The ongoing shale oil renaissance and the United States’ abundant natural resources has transformed our energy landscape, allowing American consumers access to affordable fuel supplies and spurring significant investment and job growth across our economy.But in order for this renaissance to continue, it is critical that lawmakers ensure that U.S. policy keeps pace so that our energy resources are being leveraged to provide the maximum benefit to the nation’s economy and international geopolitical interests. ADVERTISEMENT This point was made clear at a recent House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, where witnesses emphasized the enormous value that the changing dynamics in...

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. “Congress should update our national trade policy to benefit Texas producers and consumers,” state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said Monday at a joint hearing of the House Energy Resources Committee, which he chairs, and the chamber’s International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. More than 100 Texas House members have signed on to a proposed resolution that calls the ban a “relic from an era of scarcity and...

Twenty-one senators on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to swiftly authorize an exchange of heavy Mexican crude with light U.S. oil. At issue is a Pemex affiliate’s request to export 100,000 barrels per day of light U.S. oil and condensates in exchange for heavy Mexican crude — a transaction that can be approved by U.S. regulators on a case-by-case basis under existing trade laws. “We encourage the Department of Commerce to approve any such applications it has received or may receive from adjacent foreign states such as Mexico,” the senators said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. “These...

Falling oil prices have some Texas lawmakers looking to reshape U.S. policy on crude oil in the mold of another iconic Texas product: Blue Bell Ice Cream. Blue Bell’s motto is “We eat all we can, and we sell the rest.” Texas legislators think that should also apply to oil by lifting the ban on crude oil exports — a policy that’s been in place since the oil crisis of the 1970s. A drop in the price of crude, from about $100 in mid-2014 to around $50 now, has threatened to halt the recent boom in U.S. oil production. The...

...The two measures are clearest signs yet that the administration is ready to allow more of the booming U.S. shale oil production to be sold overseas,.... Output of very light oil has been especially strong, leading to a glut that threatens to overwhelm domestic demand. The constraints helped fuel bumper profits for refiners such as Valero Energy Corp and PBF Energy Inc, but angered drillers such as Hess Corp that say they were selling at a discount.... The steps on Tuesday were "certainly not designed to add or detract from what can be exported. We are trying to make the...

With the U.S. experiencing a period of rapidly increasing production of light tight oil (LTO) and Gulf Coast refining configurations geared toward processing medium and heavy crude, a growing chorus is calling for the end of the ban on US crude exports. The concern is, due to the medium/heavy orientation of the US refining sector, LTO will continue to be sold at a discount to foreign light oil prices (Brent). This discount will grow as increased LTO production is faced with growing refining bottlenecks and, eventually, will restrict LTO production in the U.S. Moreover, the issue becomes even more relevant...

Plummeting oil prices boost the argument for exporting U.S. crude and slowing the advance of new regulations that will affect the industry, American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard said Friday. Oil prices have fallen roughly 35 percent since June, with surging U.S. crude production helping boost supply beyond softening demand worldwide. Gerard cast that as “a temporary adjustment in the price,” with some rebound on the horizon, but told reporters in a conference call Friday that the decline should encourage U.S. policymakers to find ways to keep the domestic drilling boom on track. “The worst thing for us to do...

The U.S. government has banned oil exports since the energy crisis of the 1970s, but that could change next year as Republicans take control of Congress and are backed by new studies showing that repeal of the ban would actually lower gasoline prices and be a surprising boon to consumers. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican and the expected new chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has been the leading proponent in Congress for ending the ban, arguing that a sea change in the way oil and gas prices are determined in global markets has turned it...

Hit by uncertainly over oil supplies from West Asia, India is keen to diversify its imports and wants to buy crude from the US, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said. The new strategy is being planned to guard against disruption in supplies from its biggest sources in the Middle East - Iraq and Syria - as they are caught in problems relating to Islamic State movement. Asia's second-biggest energy user, which spends $143 billion on import of crude oil in 2013-14, wants the US to extend its policy of allowing gas exports to crude oil as well. "I met officials...

The oil and gas drilling boom has been good news for U.S. manufacturing, keeping factories supplied with cheap chemical feedstocks and powered by inexpensive energy. Now, a new report from The Aspen Institute and the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation says the United States can further drive the domestic manufacturing renaissance — and keep drill bits turning — by allowing energy companies to sell oil overseas. The paper hinges on the notion that if the United States eases longstanding restrictions on oil exports, it will prompt further crude production inside the country. “Higher levels of oil production require higher...

The growing glut of U.S. natural gas is helping to power a manufacturing boom in Mexico. Natural-gas exports across the southern border have risen 11% so far this year, to two billion cubic feet a day, according to Bentek Energy, an analytics company based in Denver. And that flow of gas could double in the next few years, analysts say. Companies have announced plans for at least seven new pipelines to take gas across the border from Texas and Arizona, including one expected to start transporting fuel at the end of the month. The increasing flow of gas is easing...

U.S. exports of petroleum products, primarily from the Gulf Coast (PADD 3), have continued to increase. Year-to-date product exports through June 2014 (the latest month for which data are available), including gasoline, distillate, jet fuel, petroleum coke, and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL), averaged 3.7 million barrels per day (bbl/d), up 543,000 bbl/d over last year. Increased exports from the Gulf Coast have accounted for 72% of the growth in total U.S. exports (Figure 1). With U.S. refinery runs at or near record levels for much of the year and domestic product demand only slightly higher than last year, product exports...

Morgan Stanley has quietly filed plans to build and run one of the first U.S. compressed natural gas export facilities, the first sign the bank is plunging back into physical commodity markets even as it sells its physical oil business. In a 23-page application to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy submitted in May, the Wall Street bank outlined a proposal to build, own and operate a compression and container loading facility near Freeport, Texas, which will have capacity to ship 60 billion cubic feet a year of compressed natural gas (CNG). While the size of the...