Gas prices have likely peaked. Don't expect drop because the U.S. is exporting petroleum products.

[BadgerKid]

5. Apparently slightly refined crude can be exported.

Loophole Makes Hilarious Mockery Of US Crude Oil Export Ban
Wolf Richter
TestosteronePit.com
Friday, March 7, 2014 at 12:35AM

...

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, so to speak, something else has been happening: a breathtaking boom in exports, not of crude oil, which would be illegal, but of refined “petroleum products,” which is perfectly legal, even if it’s refined just enough to circumnavigate the crude-oil export ban.

BP, the British oil mastodon which is still in hot water over the Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, figured it out too. It has inked a 10-year deal for at least 80% of the capacity of a refinery being built by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP in Houston, Bloomberg reported. The first phase of the 100,000 barrel-a-day refinery is expected to come online in July. It’s designed to refine crude just enough to turn it into a "petroleum product," which then can be legally exported without limits.

...

It’s not just BP. The possibility of legally exporting barely refined “petroleum products” to profit from the price differential overseas has been such an irresistible lure that it has triggered a construction boom of specialized refineries along the Gulf Coast.

An “inexpensive way around the export prohibition” is what Judith Dwarkin, chief energy economist for ITG Investment Research, called the phenomenon. She told Bloomberg, “You can lightly ruffle the hydrocarbons and they are considered ‘processed’ and then they aren’t subject to the ban.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/11/1283746/-Wolf-Richter-Loophole-Makes-Hilarious-Mockery-Of-US-Crude-Oil-Export-Ban