Decomposing Crude Price Differentials: Domestic Shipping Constraints or the Crude Oil Export Ban?

摘要: Over the past decade primary U.S. crude benchmark, WTI, diverged considerably from its foreign counterpart, Brent, sometimes selling at a steep discount. Some studies pointed to ban on exporting oil production as main culprit for this divergence. We find that scarce domestic pipeline capacity explains half three quarters of deviation mid-continent prices their long-run relationship with Brent crude. are unable evidence mismatch between refining configurations and characteristics contributed significantly deviation. This implies short-run deleterious effects export may have been exaggerated.