Shell CEO says U.S. should export oil to stabilize global markets
U.S. policymakers should gradually lift the country’s decades-old ban on crude oil exports because allowing the shipments would make the global energy system and fuel prices more stable, the head of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.
“Policymakers here in the United States should embrace a truly liberalized, diverse and global energy market,” Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden told an energy conference at Columbia University in New York.
U.S. oil and natural gas exports “would reinforce the long-term future of North American energy production,” significantly improve the U.S. balance of trade, and “help to make the global energy system much more stable,” he said.
The United States has banned most crude exports since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s. But pressure on the Obama administration and on Congress to overturn the restriction has risen amid the domestic shale energy boom of the last several years.
In his first major public speech since becoming CEO of the energy firm in January, van Beurden said that gradually lifting the ban would be good for U.S. fuel consumers because it would allow the country’s oil production to keep growing and to keep oil flowing to global refiners.
Anglo-Dutch Shell is the second-largest Western energy company after Exxon Mobil Corp.
Source: Reuters
