Lifting US oil ban could create thousands of jobs

Removing the US ban on crude oil exports would create between 394,000 and 859,000 jobs annually from 2016 to 2030 in oil production and the supply chain as well as the broader economy, according to a report by IHS, released on March 17.

Many of the jobs would be created in Florida, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, and other states that are not oil producers, the report said. About 10 percent of the jobs would be created in actual oil production, with 30 percent coming from the supply chain, and 60 percent from the broader economy, it said.

“The jobs story extends across the supply chain, right across the United States,” Daniel Yergin, a vice chairman at IHS and an oil historian, said in the report titled Unleashing the Supply Chain: Assessing the Economic Impact of a U.S. crude oil free trade policy. “It’s not just an oil patch story, it’s a U.S. story.”

The drilling boom of the last five years have led to record spare US crude oil supplies and started putting pressure on the Obama administration and the Congress to lift the country’s ban on oil exports. The ban was implemented by the Congress after the 1970s Arab oil embargo led to fears of energy shortages.