Our View: Limiting oil imports would help to protect American producers
Will Fine
When the price of oil drops, so does the cost of gasoline. But while people are enjoying paying lower prices at gasoline pumps, plunges in oil prices can cause economic damage in Texas.
And it can put American oil producers out of business when the price of foreign oil imports gets cheaper than the costs of extracting oil from the ground in the U.S.
Oil producers in the Panhandle recently announced the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative. Their hope is to limit the amount of oil that can be imported from other countries.
We wish them success in getting sympathetic ears to hear their initiative and gathering like-minded people to help further it.
They are right that a limitation should be set on the amount of oil imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Representatives of OPEC’s 18 nations recently met in Doha, Qatar. Among their topics of discussion was whether to freeze oil production levels.
The nations didn’t reach an agreement on the subject.
“OPEC and Russia and various countries met and decided they weren’t going to freeze oil and, in fact, OPEC said they will increase production again. This will drive the price down to $26 (a barrel) again,” said oil producer Tom Cambridge.
