Strategic thinking about exports of oil from US

Fuel Fix:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Friday that the United States needs to increase exports of oil and natural gas to its allies in Asia and Europe, reducing the influence abroad of countries including Russia and Iran.

“Countries like Russia are major suppliers to NATO countries. They can easily use their control of energy resources to hold our partners over a barrel,” the Republican Majority Whip from Texas said at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. “We can no longer keep energy policy in its own distinct silo. We have to understand energy security is intrinsically linked to our overall security.”

Those comments come as the United States has ended a decades long ban on oil exports. Earlier this week, the first shipment of U.S. liquefied natural gas left Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, bound for Brazil.

Now that sanctions against Iran have lifted, analysts are predicting up to 1 million barrels a day of new crude production will come onto the world market. Russia is the world’s second largest natural gas supplier and the third largest oil supplier, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Cornyn said he wants to see the federal government ease regulations on oil and gas drilling. He cited a rule under review at the Office of Management and Budget, which would tighten offshore drilling standards and was a response to BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident.

“We’ve made some progress on this by lifting the crude export ban, we can offer our friends the option they’ve been asking for, to diversify their energy supply,” he said.

The Senate is considering a bill to update U.S. energy policy for the first time in years, including a provision expediting applications for liquefied natural gas permits. But that legislation has gotten caught up in the debate over what support the federal government should provide in Flint, Mich., where regulators have discovered widespread lead contamination in the city’s water system.
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The anti-energy left is still working to keep us oil in the ground making it easier for countries like Russia to extort dependent countries in Europe.  It also makes it easier for Iran to finance its terror operations around the world.  Export of US oil helps allies and makes it harder for OPEC to manipulate the price of oil.  Whether they US oil is in the ground or not will have minimal effect on the total use of oil in the world.  Keeping it in the ground will enrich US adversaries.