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As Canadians waver over new oil pipelines and increased exports, the United States — a long-time customer for Canada’s oil, suddenly turned competitor — has seemingly fewer qualms about putting economic interests ahead of environmental concerns and approving exports of crude oil into the global market for the first time in decades.

Congress passed an omnibus US$1.1-trillion spending bill Friday that included the lifting of a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports that goes back to the initial OPEC crisis in the 1970s and is a testament to the remarkable reversal of fortune in recent years for North America’s once-moribund oil industry.

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The decision to permit exports of unrefined crude is “particularly important at a time when our industry is experiencing a period of extreme volatility and uncertainty,” ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said in a statement.

Concern over security of supply has become a thing of the past in this period of abundant oil after the advances in oilsands technology and, especially, hydraulic fracturing that led to development of previously untapped oil reservoirs. Record volumes of oil production in Canada and resurgent U.S. supply is looking for new markets worldwide even as prices plummet.