Feds seeking more information from oil exporters

Federal officials have cleared 12 companies to export oil condensate, but they are asking three more companies for more information, Reuters reports.

The questions, coming from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, indicate that the government still isn’t completely opening the door to companies that want to ship the lightly-processed oil product.

{mosads}Royal Dutch Shell is among the companies that have been cleared for exports, while Marathon Oil Corp. is getting more questions about its request, Reuters said, citing people familiar with the process.

The process is a commodity classification request. It allows Commerce to decide whether the exports meet the criteria for a refined product or if it is crude oil and cannot be exported under the four-decade-old ban on crude exports.

Commerce only started making private rulings about condensate exports to individual companies last year, which observers see as a small step toward allowing oil to be exported.

The additional questions that Commerce is asking go beyond the guidance questions that the agency posted on its website to clarify what products can be exported and what can’t.

Some of the questions are about the nature of the oil itself, not just the processing that it has undergone, Reuters reported.