BP Splitter Refinery Seen Skirting U.S. Oil Export Ban
The oil industry is pressuring President Barack Obama to end the 41-year-old ban on most crude exports. BP Plc (BP/) isn’t waiting for a decision.
The British oil giant has signed on to take at least 80 percent of the capacity of a new $360 million mini-refinery in Houston that will process crude just enough to escape restrictions on sales outside the country.
Amid a flood of new U.S. oil, the demand for simple, one-step plants capable of transforming raw crude into exportable products such as propane is feeding a construction boom along the Gulf Coast. If the new processing units continue to multiply, they could render moot the politically sensitive debate over whether to ease the restrictions in place since the Arab oil embargo of 1973.
“It’s a relatively inexpensive way around the export prohibition,” said Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist for ITG Investment Research Inc. “You can lightly ruffle the hydrocarbons and they are considered processed and then they aren’t subject to the ban.”
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/bp-splitter-refinery-seen-skirting-u-s-oil-export-ban.html
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