A bottleneck continues at American refineries while gas prices rise. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last week American refinery capacity fell by 1.1 million barrels per day since 2020 as more refineries closed while the remaining refineries operate at 94% capacity, creating a chokepoint for the American economy.
Fewer refineries means less capacity and less production.
The report states:
Although total U.S. refining capacity decreased in 2021, the number of operable refineries in the United States (excluding U.S. territories)—which includes both idle and operating refineries—increased to 130 refineries at the beginning of 2022, up from 129 refineries at the beginning of 2021. The increased total number of refineries in the report includes the addition of two new facilities and the closure of a third. The new facilities are the Texas International Terminals facility in Galveston, Texas, where a 45,000-b/cd atmospheric distillation unit was built at a refined products terminal, and the Talley Asphalt Products facility in Kern, California, where a 1,700-b/cd distillation unit was reported as part of an asphalt plant. The only facility that was closed and removed in the 2022 Refinery Capacity Report was the 255,600-b/cd Phillips 66 refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana (also called the Alliance refinery) which stopped refining operations following substantial flooding related to Hurricane Ida...
Several refineries closed during 2020, largely as a result of the pandemic’s impact on the U.S. refining sector...
According to the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Refinery Capacity Report, just over 1.0 million b/cd of refinery capacity has closed since January 2020. Several factors contributed to the refinery closures in 2020 and 2021, including site-specific incidents and transitions to renewable diesel production....
But wait, there is more. Over 400,000 barrels per day is scheduled to disappear from refinery capacity over the next two years:
The 2022 Refinery Capacity Report does not reflect a handful of impending constraints on U.S. refining capacity because the closures were not in effect as of January 2022. Phillips 66 has announced plans to stop refining petroleum at its 120,200-b/cd Rodeo refinery in California while the facility transitions to refining biofuels, but it had still not terminated its refining operations as of January 1, 2022. Similarly, LyondellBasell announced that its 263,776-b/cd refinery in Houston will close by the end of 2023, but the refinery has not yet stopped operations. The Refinery Capacity Report includes the capacity of both facilities. We have transitioned to idle the 176,400-b/cd Limetree Bay refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which was briefly operational in 2021 before stopping production; however, the 2022 Refinery Capacity Report includes this refinery because it was not decommissioned as of January 1, 2022....
Refinery capacity rose to 87% at the end of 2021. The report blames much of the higher gas prices on the refinery bottleneck:
Constraints on refinery capacity are contributing to current high prices for motor gasoline and diesel this summer and the widening price differentials between the U.S. East Coast and U.S. Gulf Coast.
Unfortunately, refineries are currently running at 94% capacity and have been running over 90% since March. Capacity report.
30 comments:
I thought we just had to elect a different president because everybody knows that the president is in charge of gas prices, right?
Oilfield development and refineries and their maintenance can take billions in risky investment. Who would gamble that much private capital in Venezuela or Bidenzuela?
There are some fools, including Biden and his hippie-energy fanatics, who lust for the Government to fascistically force Americans into a mythical, all electric economy. No amount of blood, misery and scientific futility dissuades them from their zeal.
Who closed the refineries?
@12:58
Blackrock Capital.
The investment group tasked by the SEC, and funded by the private Federal Reserve Bank, to take on the bad debt of the 2008 Financial Crisis.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock
They are extreme climate cult activists. It’s seriously deep and even involves Elon Musk.
If you "follow the [pseudo] science" you would learn that "the enemy of humanity are humans" (Club of Rome) and up to 90% of the current world population must be eradicated within a few short years. Get over it.
There will be no new refineries. With the governmental restraints, the increased interest rates to borrow for construction, machinery and future payroll costs, will pretty much be the end of any new refineries, thanks to Bidenomics.
@1:55 exactly, and why would you sink that much investment into a product that is being attacked and vilified to the point of extinction. Yes, there are other products from oil, but refineries primarily make fuel.
It is a global-concerted effort to do away with fossil fuels, and coal, in the name of climate change. Unless of course you are China, then you can do as you please.
Big Oil is raking in historic amounts of cash, but the windfall isn’t being invested in new production to help displace Russian oil and gas. Instead, executives are rewarding shareholders -- setting the world up for an even tighter energy market in the years ahead.
The West’s five biggest oil companies together earned $36.6 billion over and above their spending in the first quarter, or about $400 million in spare cash a day. It was the second-highest quarterly free cash flow on record and enough to relegate billions of dollars of Russia-related writedowns to mere footnotes in their recent earnings reports.
You boys will never get it, it has nothing to do with energy policy, it’s all about shareholder return. I own Shell stock so I just sell one every other fill up.
don't worry, all those electric cars will save us
Just say no to crack.
Energy Policy Reversal Coming?
Incoming GOP House and Senate (presumed) can use leverage (including Hunter laptop & 'Big Guy' payoffs) to force cooperation from WH on energy policy.
Will the new Senate majority (presumed) have the fortitude for the effort? Rubio, Cotton, Cruz, Lee, Blackburn, and others will relish the fight; but McConnell and his Rino pack? Maybe if they are forced to.
Manchin would support energy policy reversal and could amp up pressure on frail marxist WH.
There have been no new refineries nor nuclear power plants built in the US in many, many years, but yet demand for refined fuels and electric power have only increased. If the libs could get their way, they'd do away with all fossil fuels and nuclear generated power. Do they really think that windmills and solar panels are going to generate enough power for all those expensive electric vehicles that they want us to be driving?? And that doesn't even take into consideration our aging and overburdened electric grid. At the current rate we are going, we are in for some extremely hard times ahead.
“Let them eat cake” is now “Let them buy Teslas”
Energy Policy Reversal Coming?
Incoming GOP House and Senate (presumed) can use leverage (including Hunter laptop & 'Big Guy' payoffs) to force cooperation from WH on energy policy.
Will the new Senate majority (presumed) have the fortitude for the effort? Rubio, Cotton, Cruz, Lee, Blackburn, and others will relish the fight; but McConnell and his Rino pack? Maybe if they are forced to.
Manchin would support energy policy reversal and could amp up pressure on frail marxist WH.
Want lower gas prices? Get some more refineries.
Pretty much not gonna happen. Biden wants to have his cake and eat it too. During his campaign he promised to shut down the oil industry:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/23/how-politically-damaging-were-bidens-comments-about-closing-down-oil-industry/
But don't just take WaPo's word for it. Here it is straight from the horse's mouth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slszva6kk90
All you fat rednecks zooming all over town in F 250s with zero need for such a vehicle now all upset over what?
The cost of fuel which always fluctuates ——every year it moves up and down….mostly up.
Hear the whistle see the smoke I’m a stupid fat dumbass who is going broke
But it does make for a good blame game
They say don’t blame Biden, but we all know if Trump was president ever liberal idiot from Hawaii to Maine would be blaming him. Just wait for the electric cars to come out in force and electric prices go up along with taxes. They’ll be complaining about the electric companies making too much money, I’m sure those same clowns will come up with an argument with something along the line of: electric cars and racism. If oil goes bye bye, just know the oil companies will still be making money and have investments in electricity.
@1:14
Larry Fink (BlackRock) is backing Elon Musks bid for Twitter. They have been in cahoots since Musk became Obama’s second favorite African-American after Michael(Michelle)
I think you just really wanted to say "crack spread"
The interstate highway system is funded through federal gasoline taxes.
EV vehicles = no gasoline tax.
Our masters in WDC will require that our mileage is reported wirelessly so that we can be charged by the mile.
All of our movements will be tracked by the feds, which they will promise to not use to violate our privacy - right!
A new federal agency will be created to administer and enforce this program.
That agency will have law enforcement powers because there will be lots of cheating (Ya' think?).
EV cars will be seized and people arrested for tampering with big brothers tracking equipment.
1984 all over again.
No, I didn't get this from Fox News nor from some fringe conspiracy theory web site. It's my own conspiracy theory and very plausible, thank you very much.
45 years since last refinery was built. Last two expansions of existing refineries were in Texas several years ago. As to what happened to US refineries since the pandemic….some were sold to firms producing renewable diesel from fats/cooking oils using taxpayer funded subsidies. Renewable diesel also has lower productive capacity than crude produced diesel. Others refineries were simply shut due to unprofitability. As to those complaining about their current profitability, oil companies lost tens of billions just two years ago as demand cratered in the pandemic. It takes 10 years, billions of dollars, and all kinds of permits from EPA to build a new refinery. Even reopening a closed one requires permitting under Clean Air Act. By the way, California has 13 different environmental gasoline blends than cannot be mixed with other blends during the year. This requires periodic refinery shutdown and tank depletion both of which depress supply and increase price.
This analysis is like examining the fact that it's cold in the house, while ignoring entirely that someone in the family turned the furnace off. It's cause and effect - policy gave us our pain at the pump. Don't be fooled.
Are people still blaming Biden when gas prices have gone up in places Biden ain't president? Idiots.
No, people are not entirely blaming Biden for gas prices. Some of us are blaming you and the rest of the 81 million idiots that voted for him.
Bring back the sailing ships of old and use them to move the President to his European/Asian meetings. Make our politicians travel to and from by buggy or steam trains.
Well 12:38 gets into office and signs an Executive Order than cancels all drilling permits on/off shore and shuts down a major pipeline build then gets on TV and blames oil companies for not drilling...dumbazz
And to 9:34 its apparent you've drank too much stupid kool-aid, because prices started to climb the 1st month of President Dumbazz's tenure, well before Russia started the invasion and at that time the US got less than 8% of oil imported from there, but then I bet you live in Jackson and think you're in Dim-O-Krat paradise! Advice: stay away from the Kool-aid (especially if it's made with jackson's water) and Fondren Shirley Temples because it seems you're down to 1 braincell.
When Biden went into office the U.S. was exporting oil. We had plenty of oil. Biden fixed that immediately. Now he is going to countries begging for them to sell us a little oil. I don't expect Biden to remember that as he has never bought a tank of gas in his life. The government has always paid for his gas.
5:34 I'm liberal, and the only thing I've ever blamed Trump for was being too stupid, dumb, and uneducated to be president of the U.S. That's all. And turns out I was right. And then he wanted to steal an election, still proving me right.
Biden can go begging for oil, with his hat in his hand, and it will not matter. Check the article below
https://www.reuters.com/world/macron-tells-biden-that-uea-saudi-can-barely-raise-oil-output-2022-06-27/
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