Energy Benefits: More American Jobs, Economic Growth, Security

Mary Schaper
Posted September 9, 2014

Gasoline Prices Would Drop 9-13 Cents/Gal if U.S. Ends Export Ban

Platts: US gasoline prices will fall 9-12 cents/gal and prices elsewhere in the world will fall 10-13 cents/gal if current US restrictions on oil exports are dropped next year, a leading Washington think-tank said Tuesday.

"The more the US exports crude oil, the greater decline in gasoline prices," the study from The Brookings Institution's Energy Security Initiative claimed. "As counterintuitive as it may seem, lifting the ban actually lowers gasoline prices by increasing the total amount of crude supply, albeit by only a modest amount."

Brookings' finding are nearly identical to those of a May study from energy consultancy IHS which concluded that free trade of crude would cause US gasoline prices to fall 8-12 cents/gal due to the close link between gasoline and world oil prices.

Like IHS, the Brookings study claimed the impact of crude exports on gasoline prices dulls over time, falling from a 9-12 cent/gal drop in 2015 to 0-10 cents/gal by 2025.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1uHoPP4

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