Bush May Let Some of State’s Oil Be Exported : Energy: Smaller drillers are reportedly pushing for sales of California heavy crude to Asia. Such transactions have been restricted by law.

The White House is expected to propose limited West Coast exports of heavy California crude oil to Asia, a move endorsed by smaller independent drillers, an industry newspaper reported Friday.

A presidential declaration that a trial export program is in the national interest could emerge by early June, sources close to the issue told Oil Daily.

The limited export plan is part of the Energy Department’s National Energy Strategy, announced earlier this year.

Exports of crude from the declining production of aging U.S. oil fields has been restricted by law on national security grounds.

But independent drilling companies argue that the large supplies of Alaskan North Slope crude shipped to California have created a glut.

Potentially complicating the situation is the prospect of additional heavy-crude production offshore, still opposed by environmentalists. Drillers contend that refiners here cannot process all of the more-difficult-to-refine heavy crude now on the market.

Independent refiners, however, say there is no glut of California heavy crude. They add that it has “unique and highly desirable” properties.

They say exports should not be sanctioned at a time when imports are rising.

The proposal was recommended in a 1989 interagency task force report calling for exports of 15,000 barrels a day the first year, 20,000 barrels the second and 25,000 barrels the third year.

The program would thereafter be reviewed to determine if changes were needed. The plan would allow the export of only certain types of California heavy crude.

Legislation is apparently not needed to set the trial program in motion--only an executive order from the President, the publication reported.

The interagency task force report found that existing laws “adequately restrict the export of domestically produced crude oil and protect the energy and national security interests of the United States and American consumers.”