About 75 percent of the crude oil marketed here is sold off the books, and they are doing trades that would be illegal if it was a regulated market, and of course they do not want to regulate it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
First off, the crude oil market, unlike every other commodity in America, is virtually unregulated.
There is no free market for oil. It's controlled by a cartel, OPEC.
People understand we have a dependence upon foreign oil. What they do not understand and find incredibly ridiculous is that we import refined product just making us more dependent on the industry.
Public-policy-wise, if you want to be consistent, crude oil is a bulk commodity, and you should be able to export it. I would rather the crude go to U.S. refineries to get refined and then export the refined product because we get double, triple the money.
I think there's a point to regulating, because there are snake oil companies.
Energy companies, such as Chevron and Shell, and oil producing countries, such as Kuwait and Venezuela, pump crude oil from their vast land holdings and sell it on the world market.
Exporting oil would not drive up prices at the pump. American drivers buy refined products, which the U.S. already exports. Many studies - from a range of institutions and government agencies, including the Congressional Budget Office and the Energy Information Administration - have shown that lifting the export ban could actually lower gas prices.
In crude oil trading, we have seen a 46 percent increase over 1 year in the margins there.
In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades.
There are going to be questions about what major oil companies are doing with all of the resources they're accumulating. They can't escape that.
No opposing quotes found.