US oil export ban will raise prices worldwide: Expert

US oil export ban will raise prices worldwide: Expert

In an attempt to cool surging fuel prices a US ban on oil exports will have the opposite effect, energy expert Daniel Yergin told Al Arabiya.

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Democrats in the US House of Representatives are pressuring President Joe Biden to ban oil exports to lower prices, which have soared since the end of 2020.

Yergin believes that the US does not have significant leverage in this regard, and that an export ban would actually raise prices overall.

“If suddenly you took 3 million barrels a day out of the market, that is a shock to the market, it will make people scramble for new supplies and it will send the prices up.

“US gasoline prices are set by what happens in the global market, and you can do that, but you would end up with higher gasoline prices rather than lower gasoline prices, just the opposite of what you want.”

If the US releases oil reserves from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to counter rising prices, it will have more of a psychological effect on other oil producers, rather than a material effect on the market, he added.

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