Quote Originally Posted by Furryrat View Post
Not shocked, but you missed the whole point. Maybe this will help, from the Short-Term Energy Outlook report published today:

"Although crude oil prices remain high because of low oil inventories and significant geopolitical uncertainty, we estimate that world production of petroleum and other liquids has returned to within 1% of its pre-pandemic level in March 2020. We estimate that U.S. production of crude oil and other liquids averaged 19.9 million b/d in May, which was within 3% of January 2020’s record high production of 20.5 million b/d. We also estimate that OPEC crude oil and other liquids production has returned to pre-pandemic levels: May OPEC production was 33.7 million b/d, 1% higher than the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20) OPEC production of 33.4 million b/d. Furthermore, OPEC+ announced on June 2 that they will increase crude oil production targets for July and August. We forecast that OPEC crude oil and total liquid fuels production will increase to 34.6 million b/d in 3Q22, the highest since 2Q19."

And just a snip from the Q3 forecast: "U.S. refinery utilization averages 94% in 3Q22 in our forecast, as a result of high wholesale product margins."

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/ma...view/crude.php
And evidently you didn't reach anything else which has been posted regarding our country not being a closed loop for oil and gas production and export. Had oil experts not been allowed again and gas products also curtailed, then there would be a much much wider margin between the WTI average and Brent. The crack margin would also be much less as a result.

Instead we have one of the biggest exporters of crude in the world having majorly curtailed its exports as a result of an illegal war that triggered sanctions AND we have the lingering supply cuts agreed to by American producers through the API and OPEC+ in April 2020 via the Trump Whitehouse.

So let's recap. Globalization of American resources, reduced supply worldwide has driven up prices, supply is further being suppresses by Big Oil and OPEC+ agreements.