Additional Links In Wake Of The Slump In Oil Prices -- January 7, 2015

Slump in oil prices probably doesn't necessarily mean grain farmers will have better access to wheat-carrying unit trains. The Bakken.com is reporting.

***********************************

A second link, Bloomberg is reporting:

The U.S. exported a record amount of crude oil in November after a five-year run of production growth that has made the country the most oil-independent in 20 years.
Shipments surged 34 percent to average 502,000 barrels a day in November, the most on record dating back to 1920, data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Energy Information Administration show. The previous peak was 455,000 in March 1957. The U.S. is now the 17th-largest exporter. 

I have to really chuckle. When I first started blogging in 2007/2009 (and deleted the original blog in a moment of insanity) I suggested US oil exports would surge. I did not know there was a ban. A reader wrote to tell me. I checked the law and wrote that the exceptions were large enough to drive a 100-unit oil train through. More of the story:

About 218,000 barrels a day left from northern places like Detroit, upstate New York and Maine. Another 174,000 exited via Texas ports like Houston and Corpus Christi. About 70,000 went through Montana and North Dakota, and 38,000 out of New Orleans.

The U.S. bans most exports of unrefined crude oil. Shipments to Canadian refiners are allowed, as are re-exports of foreign oil, and a few other small exceptions. Congress will discuss repealing the ban in 2015, Representative Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, said at a Dec. 11 hearing in Washington.

For now, the existing exceptions are helping producers find higher-value markets for U.S. crude. The U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate was $2.50 a barrel less than than international Brent yesterday, from a $13.44 discount a year ago. 

This is a very interesting story. I talked to a CEO of an oil company located in Texas and he said something I never gave any thought to: all oil produced is sold.

Unlike Christmas wrapping that goes on sale after the holidays, and then a lot of it never sold and just thrown away, produced oil is not dumped in the ocean. It ends up going somewhere. The Bloomberg suggests exactly that. Very, very interesting. There's more than just Cushing, Pennsylvania refineries, etc., for Bakken oil. Very, very interesting. 

Much, much more at the linked story.