After 40-year ban, U.S. starts exporting crude oil

CNN ^ | 01/29/16 | Matt Egan

[ChessExpert]

Thanks. I wondered about that.

SPR was always a funny idea, extracting oil to bury it again. Reminds me of the old gold standard practice of extracting gold from underground, just to bury it underground again. Each had their rationale, but one could ask if there is a better way.

[Rashputin]

Start with this and this from the globalist mouthpiece and search for "oil producers change their stand", "CO2 tax", and so on.

I haven't yet checked into who will be exporting from the US right away but I think I could make a good guess just based on this from the above article :
But Exxon Mobil, which last year was ranked by the Fortune 500 as the nation's most profitable company, is representative of Big Oil's slow evolution on climate change policy.

Regards

[ChessExpert]

Well I guess that if there is a tax, you have to pay it.

Perhaps oil companies gave up their political resistance to the tax as quid pro quo for permission to export oil. That would be a shame.

What comes out load and clear in the NYT’s article is Koch, Koch, Koch. What a trashy newspaper.

[Rashputin]

No foolin, they report what amounts to a major change by multiple massive corporations and just skim past that because it's only liberal enlightenment spreading to weave yet another "Darth Koch" attack.

[thackney]

Oil is fungible.

Do you understand what that means?

Like gold, it is a global commodity price.

What far complicates oil prices is the significant difference in pricing due to quality. All oil is not equal.

[ChessExpert]

I understand that oil is fungible under most circumstances. But it is very unusual for a major producer to outlaw exports.

From Wikipedia:
Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution. That is, it is the property of essences or goods which are “capable of being substituted in place of one another.”

So oil is oil and American crude can be substituted for anyone else’s crude. But how can substitution take place if exports are illegal?

[thackney]

So oil is oil and American crude can be substituted for anyone else’s crude. But how can substitution take place if exports are illegal?

First, as I said, there can be major differences in oil qualities. It is NOT all equally replaceable.

Crude oils have different quality characteristics
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7110

Secondly, the US export ban has been lifted.