Stranded Crude

Next week (January 2016 - according to press reports) Enterprise Products Partners will load the first cargo of U.S. crude oil to be exported without regard to the regulations that restricted such movements to most countries except in certain circumstances for the past forty years. It looks like the lifting of crude oil export restrictions came too late to have much impact on U.S. production or prices in an era of free falling prices. Today we look at the impact of the change on the crude price spread between U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and international counterpart Brent.