Quote Originally Posted by Sighisoara View Post
I think y’all are missing the forest for the trees here. The way it was explained to me is that even if all the drilling commenced today, there would be virtually no impact on the gasoline market in the US. The refineries here are designed to use the heavier oil from the Middle East, not the lighter stuff we produce. This is why the US exports most of the oil it produces and imports most of the oil it uses. The problem is further exacerbated due to refineries here shutting down at a large rate over the last two years primarily because of unprofitability … to the tune of about 1 million barrels per day. It’s my understanding that to re-fit the existing refineries to use the stuff we produce would take 2 to 4 years. We’re not drilling our way out of this mess.
We produce heavy crude, in fact the most carbon heavy crude in the world right here in the US, in Kern County California. There are two refineries, one idle and the other tooled to mostly produce asphalt components and both tooled to use heavy crude. The last owner of the first plant, Flying J doesn't want to produce gasoline and so far hasn't found a buyer. So not only do we have heavy crude available, but we have spare refinery capacity idled, but ready to resume in short order if the industry wanted.

US exports a lot of oil, but we mostly consume it here in this country. We can refine domestic oil at a much higher profit due to regulations allowing an oil company to produce, refine and sell its products to any buyer or price, due to free markets.

Current refineries have averaged 95-97% capacity because oil companies aren't in the business of lowering their own profits by producing more product. Again, free market. President Biden can and still may use the Defense Production Act to goad some of the idled refineries into production or to finance an independent into buying one of the refineries for sale, but this action hasn't yet been decided by the current administration.