Hellenic Shipping News: Poten and Partners: The Force Awakens

21 Dec 2015: “In the highly unlikely scenario that you did not hear about it, the new Star Wars movie is opening in the U.S. this weekend and Congress passed a bill to lift the 40-year ban on U.S. crude oil exports. The potential for U.S. crude exports is a big deal and within a few days many articles and opinion pieces have come out to explain what this means for oil prices, refining margins, the WTI/Brent spread and many other factors. Most pundits seem to agree that the impact on the oil markets will be limited in the short-term as the world is awash in crude and the narrow WTI-Brent spread currently makes U.S. crudes uncompetitive in the export market. But what will happen in the medium to long-term? In this brief, we will analyze a few possible scenarios, and attempt to address some outstanding questions.”