Booming Oil & Gas Help Texas Exports Grow 3 Times Faster Than U.S. Average

The value of exports of oil and gas from Texas jumped by 45 percent, CNBC reports, citing data from trade research firm WISERTrade.

The value of Texas’ petroleum and coal product exports increased by 5 percent.

The value of Texas exports in January and February this year exceeded US$50.9 billion, a rise of 9 percent on the year—triple the U.S. national export growth of 2.6 percent in the first two months of the year, according to WISERTrade data.

As per WISERTrade, Texas accounted for almost 20 percent of all U.S. exports in the first two months of 2019, compared to 11 percent share for California. Over the past few years, the share of California of national exports has declined, while the share of Texas has grown, thanks to the soaring production and the rise in exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast after the U.S. removed restrictions on crude oil exports in 2015.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the value of the Texas crude oil exports stood at US$38.675 billion in 2018, a surge of 127 percent from 2017.

Texas continues to see its exports climb, and the state “exhibits a manufacturing edge in energy-related products and intermediate goods,” Jesus Cañas and Stephanie Gullo with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas wrote earlier this month.

Texas’ annualized 6 percent export growth since 2002 is almost double the 3.6 percent rate for the rest of the United States, according to Dallas Fed.

Last year, petroleum and coal products was the number-one manufacturing export sector for Texas, accounting for 17.7 percent of total state exports, the Dallas Fed said, but warned that its Texas business survey from February 2019 found that businesses described the tariffs as “a looming threat” affecting “virtually all imported raw materials” and “making U.S. exports less competitive.”   

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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