Greg L. Armstrong
Analyst · Barclays
Well, if the government will get out of our way, we'll prove that crude oil is a worldwide commodity. I think what you're saying, Brian, is basically commerce is functioning, not with the help of, but despite, Washington's objections. And so well, it's the fact that we're trying to balance the system. And light crude needs to find its way to markets that want light crude, and we need to continue to bring heavy crude in. And if they put a rule in that says you can't do that, then we'll replumb the system again. So a little clarity wouldn't hurt. From the standpoint of question on exports, as we've indicated in prior calls, we have probably, we think, the best asset base amongst all of anybody, especially given our position in Eagle Ford in South Texas to be able to source, process, segregate, transport and export, processed crude oil and condensate, and we think PAA has the highest volume, most sophisticated, independently-owned condensate processing unit for stabilized products in the U.S. today. And then once we plumb in -- by the way, our Cactus system, which will connect West Texas to the South Texas area, then the value of that only improves. So I think, what we've seen so far is that on the exports, following the issuance of the private letter rulings to Pioneer and Enterprise, a variety of reasons, including politics, we believe, contributed what appears to be a cessation of progress with respect to other companies' similar request for letter rulings. And it really appears to be regardless of the merits of their proposal. It's more, candidly, politics. Clearly, that's frustrating to us and other exporters. To date, we have not exported any product under a self-determination avenue. But since our last few calls, we have sought extensive legal and engineering advice and have been comforted by the recommendations and the advice basically say that everything we're doing is in compliance with our objective, and an objective interpretation of the various rules and regs under which you would be permitted to export products. So I can't really give you much more comment on the export issue other than that, other than if you ask me a question about next call, I think I'll have a short, brief answer for you.