Oil Refiners Shrug Off Agreement to Remove U.S. Export Limits
- Congress agrees to lift 40-year old ban on most crude exports
- Refiners to receive small increase in manufacturing tax break
WTI-Brent Spread May Hinder U.S. Oil Export Plan
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Restrictions on U.S. crude exports may disappear. That doesn’t mean the sky is falling for refiners.
A Bloomberg index of 11 U.S. independent refiners rose 2.3 percent in New York Wednesday, after congressional leaders agreed on a deal to lift a 40-year ban on most oil exports. Some refiners, which process crude into gasoline and diesel, would get a tax break on the cost of transporting oil as part of the deal. The break is expected to be $119 million in 2016, or about 0.5 percent of next year’s combined pre-tax profits of the refiners in the index, according to government and analyst estimates.