This is actually a huge deal. It could change the world economy and alter the global balance of power.
The United States exported crude oil on Thursday, effectively ending a half-century ban on selling American oil abroad and opening the door for a radical transformation of the world economy, the Wall Street Journal reported.
An oil tanker arrives at a port in Singapore in 2013.
Suhaimi Abdullah / Getty Images
The shipment seems small in the scale of the global energy market, but it could have momentous consequences. The U.S. had not exported crude since the 1970s, when an embargo led by the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pushed gasoline prices to unsustainable levels. The embargo prompted Congress to pass a law forbidding the overseas sale of American oil.
The ban was instituted at a time when U.S. oil production was in steep decline. But now, the opposite is true.
An oil field in California.
David McNew / Getty Images
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