Exporting condensate on a small scale should be an interesting experiment. It's more of a niche product and isn't technically crude because there is some processing that must be done to it before it can be refined. Another interesting point is that both companies that are being permitted to export their condensate are Houston based. I'm some what familiar with Pioneer having researched them a little bit after seeing a job posting for their HR department a few months ago. In hindsight, it may not have been a bad idea to apply.
I'll tackle the OPs other question: why are there subsidies? Which of these do you have an issue with? The foreign tax credit is common and commonsense - if you paid tax to a foreign government shouldn't you get credit for it so you don't get taxed twice? Non-conventional fuel production credit sounds straightforward - the govt has a policy that they want to encourage, this is similar to the green fuels credit and most likely is referring to ethanol. Personally I think the ethanol deal was incredibly stupid and not green in the slightest, but ymmv. For what it's worth, even Al Gore agrees with me these days. The final one is the simplest - I had business costs and I am using these to offset some of my profits. If you have a problem with this....<shakes his head> Here's a couple more articles on the subject: http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/04/25/the-surprising-reason-that-oil-subsidies-persist-even-liberals-love-them/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2013/01/02/oil-gas-tax-provisions-are-not-subsidies-for-big-oil/ For what it's worth, the US government makes a lot of money on oil and gas production through taxes - a lot more than they return in any inflated estimate of subsidies. They also tax the gas that you buy - so don't forget to thank the government for their share of high gas prices.
