After a mediocre fourth-quarter 2015 ending, there are some unexpected flickers of encouragement in the economic arena that may yet turn into a bonfire.
Santa Claus may have delivered the greatestgift in years to the American oil industry with the recent announcement that the 1975 Nixon embargo against U.S. global oil exports has been totally lifted as part of a 2015 year-end bipartisan U.S. budget agreement.
The U.S. energy sector had been in “breakout mode” until Saudi Arabia and its associated allies, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, combined to go for broke at the November 2014 OPEC Vienna conference to short-circuit America’s supercharged hydraulic fracturing (fracking) outburst that started in 2010. This was reconfirmed at the Dec. 4, 2015 OPEC meeting, which retained Saudi Arabia’s unrestrained production level.