Oil ban lift could hurt jobs in St. Charles Parish refinery business

As efforts continue with Congress to lift restrictions on U.S. crude oil exports, so are those by the United Steelworkers union (USW) to stop it, arguing it could hurt jobs and the refinery business in areas like St. Charles Parish.

Supporters of lifting the four-decade-old ban maintain it’s a relic muzzling the national economy and an unfair restraint on the petroleum industry when President Obama prepares to lift sanctions on Iranian oil.

“It’s just another piece of the puzzle, trying to drive manufacturing jobs offshore and we’ve lost enough of them,” said Brent Petit, USW staff representative of 18 area union groups mobilizing efforts to head off these efforts to change U.S. oil export restrictions.

Petit said they recently delivered more than 700 letters opposing the move to U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. He noted some of them came from Local 750 representing Motiva in Norco and Convent, as well as Shell Chemical.

USW maintains lifting the ban could jeopardize refinery jobs by sending them overseas, cause gasoline price increases globally, put OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) “in the driver’s seat for U.S. oil security” and make the U.S. reliant on foreign crude again.

Valero Energy Corp., which has been running refinery operations at 96 percent capacity to meet growing demand for cheaper gasoline, is also siding with maintaining export limitations.

“Keeping the legislation unchanged has been Valero’s position throughout discussions to change it,” said Bill Day, Valero’s vice president of communications. “On exports, we have said that current system in place that allows for exports to strategic partners is fine and we really don’t see a reason to change it right now.”

“Lifting the export ban means exporting jobs, too, particularly in the refineries that handle these types of crude,” Petit said.

According to Day, “The St. Charles refinery is large and complex, and is able to process a broad mix of different types of crude. Those include heavy sour crudes, as well as some light sweet (low sulfur) crudes, and everything in between. Valero’s nearby Meraux refinery typically processes a higher percentage of light sweet crude.”