The US Department of Commerce (DoC) has approved one-year licenses to export of US crude oil to Mexico, in exchange for imported Mexican oil; this oil swap is an exemption allowed under the four-decade-old ban on crude oil exports and comes eight months after Mexico formally sought authorisation to import about 100,000 bbl/d of light, shigh-quality shale oil from the United States, in an attempt to boost the production of premium fuels in ageing refineries. US refiners will in turn import Mexican heavy oil.
The DoC has also rejected several applications for swaps with other countries in Asia and in Europe and highlighted that this decision "should not be interpreted as a policy shift toward greater export liberalization". In January 2015, the government had allowed Shell to export "lightly processed condensate", a very light form of domestic crude oil, qualified as a refined product by the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which led to soaring condensate exports (from about 60,000 bbl/d in January 2015 to up to 140,000 bbl/d in May 2015).