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The Case Against U.S. Crude Oil Exports Researched and Written by Lorne Stockman

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The Case Against U.S. Crude Oil Exports Researched and Written by Lorne Stockman October 2013 The Case againsT U.s. CrUde Oil expOrTs Researched and written by Lorne Stockman. With thanks to Paulina Essunger and David Turnbull for comments. Design: [email protected] Cover photo: iStock ©Ngataringa Published by Oil Change International 714 G Street SE, Suite 202 Washington, DC 20003 [email protected] www.priceofoil.org © All rights reserved October 2013 Contents executive summary 4 Crude Oil Exports Will Undercut Climate Goals 4 Report Outline 4 1. Boom! 6 Tight Oil Fever: Can the Hyperbole be Believed? 9 2. Mismatch: Why U.s. Refineries are Awash in tight oil 11 Tight Oil’s Inconvenient Geography 11 Tight Oil’s Inconvenient Chemistry 13 Product Yields: Why Tight Oil is Too Light for Some U.S. Refining Markets 13 Bad Timing: Light Oil Growth in a Heavy Oil Market 14 3. Unburnable Carbon: Why U.s. Crude exports Will Undermine Climate Goals 16 4. Current Crude export Regulations 20 5. Crude oil exports Past and Present 22 Current Export Licenses 23 Foreign Crude Exports: A Route Out of North America for the Tar Sands 25 6. Boom or Bust! Increasing Calls for U.s. Crude oil exports May Be Gaining traction 26 Industry’s Dissenting Voices 29 7. Will the tight oil Refining Wall ever Really Hit? 31 The Growing North American Market for Tight Oil 31 Refinery Modifications: Increasing U.S. Capacity to Refine Light Oil 31 Splitters: One Answer to the Condensate Problem 32 Exploiting Loopholes 33 8. Conclusion 34 Figure 1. Bakken Tight Oil Fracking Schematic 6 Figure 2. Tight Oil Production, 2000 to 2012 7 Figure 3. Primary Tight Oil and Shale Gas Fields in the Lower 48 United States 8 Figure 4. Long Term Tight Oil Production Forecasts Are Highly Uncertain 9 Figure 5. Decline Curve for Bakken Tight Oil Wells 10 Figure 6. Typical Intermediary Product Yields from Different Density Oils 14 Figure 7. U.S. Light Oil Prices Have Been Discounted to International Light Oil for Over Two Years 15 Figure 8. U.S. Crude Oil Exports, 1975 to 2012 22 Figure 9. U.S. Crude Oil Exports, June 2012 to 2013 23 Figure 10. Slide from November 2011 Platts Presentation 26 Figure 11. Investments to Process More Domestic Light Crude Oil 32 Table 1. Crude Oil Categories and Their Corresponding Density and Sulfur Levels 13 4 executIve Summary CRude Oil Exports Will Report Outline UndercuT Climate Goals Chapter 1 of this report describes the America’s oil producers want to export current U.S. oil boom, led by the growth American crude oil to boost their in tight oil produced through hydraulic profits. This is despite the fact that fracturing (fracking). they produce less than 52 percent of American consumption.1 However, current Chapter 2 describes how the properties regulations restrict u.S. crude oil exports, of tight oil present problems for some U.S. except to Canada. refineries and how this reduces the value of tight oil in the U.S. market. Raising the The oil producers want to lift these price of tight oil is the key driver behind the restrictions so that they can get a higher oil industry’s call for deregulating U.S. crude price for their oil on the international market oil exports. and force American refiners to also pay that price. By raising the price of American Chapter 3 explains that maximizing oil the producers claim they will be better tight oil production would have serious able to drill in more marginal oil fields and environmental impacts. For the United produce more oil; although any prospect States to play a responsible role in achieving of actually bridging the gap between global climate goals it must leave some U.S. production and consumption of oil is of its growing reserves of oil (as well as unrealistic without much greater efforts to some of its gas and coal) in the ground. reduce consumption.2 Deregulating crude oil exports will make this even more difficult than it already is. However, America’s current oil boom is not only placing severe stresses on water, Chapters 4 and 5 describe the current crude Averting climate disaster means land and air resources in hundreds of oil export regulations and present data on communities across the country, it is also historic and current crude oil exports. leaving fossil fuels in the ground. increasing the proportion of global oil reserves that can never be burnt. Allowing Chapter 6 discusses the current calls to exports will enable more drilling and deregulate crude oil exports. Who is making exacerbate these problems further. these calls and what are they saying? Only 20 to 25 percent of global proven oil Finally, Chapter 7 shows that there is still reserves can be consumed between now some way to go before tight oil producers and 2050 if we are to have an 80 percent actually run out of North American chance of avoiding devastating climatic customers for their product and that it is changes that would destroy the global far from certain that they ever will. economy. Therefore, allowing U.S. crude oil Deregulating exports now would only exports specifically to enable exploitation serve to raise U.S. oil prices and make of oil that is currently not included in those more profit for the industry. reserves is a recipe for disaster. We are in a hole and we need to stop digging. Despite the pleas of greedy oil companies and free market fundamentalists, In order to play its part in meeting global deregulating crude oil exports should not climate goals, it is imperative that the distract U.S. law makers from the vital United States maintains the ban on crude imperative to arrest the impending climate oil exports and does everything it can to crisis. Averting climate disaster means decrease, rather than increase, the global leaving fossil fuels in the ground. pool of fossil fuel reserves that are exploited. 1. Energy Information Administration (EIA) “Petroleum & Other Liquids. Supply and Disposition June 2013.” (Current period at time of writing.) Using Field Production of Crude oil and Petroleum products against Products Supplied. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_snd_d_nus_mbblpd_m_cur.htm 2. The highest credible forecasts for U.S. oil production reach 10 to 11 million barrels per day. Oil demand is forecast to remain around 18 million barrels per day. EIA estimates of liquid fuel production that include natural gas liquids, renewable fuels, gas-to-liquids and other non-crude oil liquids appear to bridge the gap but do not necessarily match the qualities of U.S liquids demand. Averting climate disaster means leaving fossil fuels in the ground. The fracked landscape of the Jonah Natural Gas Field, Upper Green River, Wyoming. ©Ecoflight 6 The rising price of oil since 2005 has supported the development of technology to bring billions of barrels of tight oil into production 1. BooM! The united States is experiencing an unprecedented boom in oil production. High global oil prices have encouraged new intensive extraction methods that have unlocked previously inaccessible oil and led to very swift growth in u.S. oil production. In 2012, the united States led the world in oil production growth, increasing production by 1 million barrels per day (b/d) over the span of just one year.3 The vast majority of this increase was derived from ‘tight oil,’ primarily produced via horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Tight oil is present in rocks that have low permeability and low porosity.4 The oil does ~2 miles not move freely through the rock and it cannot be accessed simply by drilling conventional oil wells. The industry has been aware of the existence of much of the oil in these formations for decades but was unable to produce it economically. The rising price of oil since 2005 has supported the development of technology to bring billions of barrels of tight oil into production. Figure 1. Bakken Tight Oil Fracking Schematic ~2 miles Source: istockphoto5 3. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil.” Accessed August 16, 2013. December 2011 to December 2012 production increased 1.063 million barrels per day. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M 4. Porosity measures the amount of empty space in the rock. Permeability measures the interconnectivity between the pore spaces, i.e. both of these contribute to how easily fluids and gases can flow through the rock. 5. ©roccomontoya Fracking has enabled drillers to produce inaccessible oil, as well as trillions of cubic The steep rise in production has been a 7 tight oil as well as shale gas. The method feet of natural gas, have become available. surprise to many industry observers, as is more commonly associated with the evidenced by repeated upward revisions extraction of natural gas from shale The most prolific tight oil fields currently to production forecasts.7 Figure 2 shows formations (shale gas), but since around are the Bakken oil field (primarily in North the rise in tight oil production from 2000 2010 the technique has been increasingly Dakota but also in Montana and some to 2012. The surge in production in just used to access oil and today there are parts of Canada), and the Eagle Ford two years between 2010 and 2012, from more drilling rigs fracking for oil than gas and Permian oil fields in Texas. However, around 500,000 b/d in 2010 to over in the United States.6 other fields are also producing tight oil in 2.2 million b/d in 2012, is evidence of Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Louisiana, thousands of wells being drilled in one Fracturing the rock containing the oil and California and elsewhere.
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