Remember All Those Stories Back In 2011 And Earlier Suggesting The Bakken Was All Hype? Fast Forward: US Crude Oil Exports Are Poised To Reach The Highest Level In 28 Years

Snopes thought the Bakken was hyped back in 2011 and have never gotten back to updating the article.

This still remains one of my favorite posts. Jane Nielson, in 2010, said:

Frequent Internet users are getting emails about the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana, supposedly a great oil bonanza just waiting to be tapped if only nasty enviros would let it happen. The emails and websites say that Bakken would solve all our petroleum “needs.” (What, me worry about  global warming?)

Don’t believe it. There’s some oil to be gotten out of Bakken, and it’s going to be exploited. But the “bonanza” is nothing but hype.

Wow. Jane has not updated this post. Jane must have given up. Her last post was dated July 23, 2012.

But I digress.

Whether or not the Bakken is/was hyped, Americans who use gasoline can thank the Bakken for keeping prices of oil down. Bloomberg is reporting that Bakken oil has brought the price of Brent crude oil down:

U.S. oil exports are poised to reach the highest level in 28 years as deliveries to Canada more than triple, helping bring down the price of the global benchmark Brent crude relative to U.S. grades.

The shipments will rise to at least 200,000 barrels a day by the end of the year, according to Ed Morse, head of global commodities research at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Exports were 59,600 in 2012 and haven’t averaged more than 200,000 since 1985. The U.S. restricts companies from sending American crude abroad, with Canada an exception. 

The premium for Brent, used to price European and West African crude, over U.S. West Texas Intermediate narrowed to less than $8 a barrel this week from $25.53 in November. The export increase allows refiners in eastern Canada including Valero Energy Corp. and Irving Oil Corp. to replace cargoes from overseas with less-expensive U.S. oil, benefiting from the shale-drilling boom that’s pushed domestic output to the highest level since 1992. 

So much for all those stories saying the Bakken was hyped. "US oil exports is poised to reach the highest level in 28 years."

I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E.

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I also remember after posting a comment about US oil exports I was told that laws did not allow the US to export oil. I noted that the exceptions to the law forbidding US oil exports were big enough to drive an oil truck through.