http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-28/can-the-u-dot-s-dot-double-its-crude-exports-in-a-year?campaign_id=yhoo

An important shift has quietly occurred in the U.S. oil industry in the past month. In late June the Department of Commerce determined that two Texas companies, Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) and Enterprise Products Partners (EPD), could start exporting an ultralight type of crude called condensate. That constitutes the biggest loosening of the U.S. ban on oil exports since it was passed in 1975.

After news of the ruling broke, Commerce Department officials seemed genuinely surprised by the reaction and announced that allowing condensate exports did not ordain a change in the law. Yet, that’s pretty much how the market treated it.

Energy companies are now lining up to get the same permission from the government as Pioneer and Enterprise. There’s talk of building condensate-only pipelines in Texas, home to some of the biggest such reserves in North America. The topic was discussed at length during the Energy Information Administration’s annual conference a couple of weeks ago, and analysts have even begun calculating valuations for oil companies based on a future where the export ban gets lifted.

The political reality is much different. Although lifting the ban has been discussed more in Congress this year than at any other time during the past four decades, the votes aren’t there and the debate is still an epic fight between oil producers who want to lift the ban and refiners who would rather that oil stay at home.

So for the time being, we’re left to consider the importance of exporting condensate. The problem with condensate is that the U.S. is producing way more than it needs. The most common use for it is as an additive to lighten up heavier crudes and make them easier to refine; it’s also used as an ingredient in chemical plants. But that’s about it. According to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, the U.S. produces about 750,000 barrels per day of condensate. Since so much of the U.S. oil boom already involves light oil, there’s not a lot of heavy oil to add it to.

On top of that, U.S. refiners don’t really want it. Condensate is so vaporous, it can overwhelm the workings of a refinery and slow down the process of turning oil into a fuel. In a July 7 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Valero (VLO) reported that condensates are “uneconomic feedstocks for our refineries; removing them from crude may improve refinery throughout and yields.”