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Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

The Biden Administration has significantly…

Oil Moves Down on Inventory Rise

Oil Moves Down on Inventory Rise

Crude oil prices inched lower…

Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana Paraskova

Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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Why Is The United States Still Exporting Fuel?

  • The price of gasoline has climbed above $5 per gallon.
  • U.S. fuel exports have continued to rise, adding additional pressure on domestic fuel inventories.
  • “With refiners already running at full tilt, something has to give,” BloombergNEF analyst Danny Adkins told Bloomberg.
U.S. Fuel

As the U.S. national average price of gasoline hits $5 per gallon, higher fuel exports out of America are additionally sapping domestic fuel inventories, which are already at multi-year lows.  Reduced refining capacity since the start of COVID, low inventories, and strong post-COVID demand, alongside $120 a barrel crude, have sent U.S. gasoline prices soaring over the past months to reach a record-breaking $5 a gallon on average. 

The White House is desperate to lower gasoline prices, which are the most important election issue for many Americans ahead of the mid-term elections in November. Ideas juggled by the Biden Administration range from invoking the Defense Production Act to boost refining capacity and output, to restrictions on oil exports. President Joe Biden also stepped up rhetoric toward oil companies, telling them in a letter sent this week to increase fuel production and noting that “refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable.” 

Refiners have boosted exports of refined petroleum products this year, especially to Latin America, which isn’t getting much fuel these days from Europe, which in turn is grappling with its own set of fuel supply troubles with the sanctions and embargoes on Russian oil after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Exports of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from the U.S. Gulf Coast were up by 32 percent in March, April, and May compared to those three months of 2021, and up 11 percent compared to those months in the pre-pandemic 2019, data from market-intelligence firm Kpler cited by The Wall Street Journal showed.

So far in June, seaborne shipments of gasoline and diesel from the Gulf Coast have jumped on track to be the highest since at least 2016, per oil analytics company Vortexa quoted by Bloomberg

Higher fuel exports have contributed to lower inventories in the U.S., although this is not the primary reason for multi-year-low stockpiles of products. 

Related: The Energy Crisis Has Been A Boon For Argentina’s Dead Cow Shale Patch

U.S. motor gasoline inventories are about 11 percent below the five-year average for this time of year, the EIA said in its latest weekly inventory report. Distillate fuel inventories, which include diesel, are some 23 percent below the five-year average. 

“With refiners already running at full tilt, something has to give,” BloombergNEF analyst Danny Adkins told Bloomberg. “We either need a redirection of exports, or prices will need to rise enough for more significant demand destruction.”

President Biden slammed oil companies for passing record profit margins onto consumers and asked for solutions to the refining constraints in the letter to major oil companies and refiners. 

The President is also “open to all reasonable uses of the federal government’s tools to increase output and lower costs at the pump, including emergency authorities like the Defense Production Act,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. 

The White House is even considering restrictions on gasoline and diesel exports, and discussions on such a move have intensified in recent days, sources with knowledge of the talks told Bloomberg this week.  

However, a partial ban on petroleum exports would backfire as it would create additional supply shortages globally, driving oil prices higher. 

Restrictions on exports would also send a mixed message to U.S. allies in a divided world, especially to allies in Europe, which is looking to phase out Russian seaborne oil and refined products imports within eight months when the EU embargo on Russian oil officially kicks in. 

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After all, crude oil prices are the single biggest factor determining U.S. gasoline prices, accounting for over 53 percent of the average retail price per gallon. In addition, some 1 million bpd of U.S. refinery capacity has been shut permanently since the start of the pandemic, as refiners have opted to either close money-losing facilities or convert some of them into biofuel production sites. U.S. operable refinery capacity was at just over 18 million bpd in 2021, the lowest since 2015, per EIA data. 

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Leave a comment
  • George Doolittle on June 19 2022 said:
    Presumably because no one can import fuel at a cheaper price and sell at retail is why although how this is possible given the North American rail network alone is absolutely mind boggling to me. the USA pipeline infrastructure is even more massive in point of fact. Plus barge shipping as well.

    No shortage of pure BEV in the USA at the moment.

    Long $ibm International Business Machines
    Strong buy
  • Steve Walser on June 20 2022 said:
    The real issue is not why the US is still exporting oil but how the Biden administration has so mismanaged our energy affairs as to feel that they must demogogue the issue by painting the oil companies as, somehow, gouging the consumer. Of course we and the oil companies must honor our long term committments even when this causes prices to increase in the US. We have benefited from low prices when worldwide market prices were low and to think we should cut off customers that depend upon US supplies because the market is now high would be extremely shortsighted and dishonorable.
    Biden' cancelation of pipelines and refineries along with their failure to issue leases for new drilling certainly effects market psychology in the short term as well as market fundamentals in the medium to long term. Trump understood this, Biden either does not or is so wedded to the lefts myopic ideology that he cannot excape it's ruinous consequences.
    Either way the Biden administration is a disaster for energy policy.

Leave a comment




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