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The United States produces more oil per day than it consumes, yet we import over 50% of our oil. Have you ever stopped to wonder why? https://www.nasdaq.com/ar

The United States produces more oil per day than it consumes, yet we import over 50% of our oil. Have you ever stopped to wonder why? https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/america-produces-enough-oil-to-meet-its-needs-so-why-do-we-import-crude https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/america-produces-enough-oil-...

vel0city 2y ago
Your claim was: > The US is unable to refine the oil it produces This is just entirely factually incorrect. The US can and does refine light, sweet crude. It wouldn't be a massive effort for more US refineries currently set to handle heavier and more sour crude to switch to it. More and more refineries have been making the switch especially since the time WTI went so low it went negative. Most of the rest of the world has a harder time processing heavier and more sour oils. The US led the world in refining technologies, so we have the knowledge and equipment to refine it. This is partially due to the US being so involved in Venezuela's oil industry growth, the US essentially built the refining technology to make Venezuela's oil filds useful and why they were so crushed when relations with the US went bad. Few other refiners are set up to process Venezuela's oil. So, it makes sense we buy the cheaper stuff we can easily process and sell the easy to process more expensive stuff on the world market. Cheaper refined products for us and we make more profit selling the easier stuff. You're still just wrong stating "The US is unable to refine the oil it produces". It wasn't until the Obama administration that the US could export oil on the world market. Have you ever stopped to wonder what we were doing with all that oil we were generating for so many decades?[0] Have you stopped to consider what we're doing with those 8 million barrels we produce every day that don't get exported today? [0] https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-08a04454def141049f848dba70144107 https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-co...
- taylodl 2y ago
  Okay - we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce. Is that better? The point is Americans believe the United States is energy dependent, and we are not. Not by a long shot.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > Okay - we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce. Is that better? The US produces ~12 million barrels a day. We export less than 4. 12 - 4 = 8. Which is bigger, 8/12 or 4/12? Which one is bigger than 1/2? Or are you saying we just dump 8 million barrels a day into the oceans or something? Have you ever stopped to wonder where that goes? And you still have no answer for what we did with all the oil we generated form the 70s until the 2015. Were we unable to refine most of that oil as well? Where did we put it all? So no, even saying "we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce" is still just factually incorrect. > The point is Americans believe the United States is energy dependent, and we are not. Not by a long shot. Sure, if all global oil trade stopped today refined products would get a lot more expensive overnight. Refineries would have to retool a bit. But overall, the US refines more oil than refined products we consume, so it would be a temporary thing.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      Your figures are nowhere near correct according to the US Energy Information Administration, but then again, neither were mine. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Looking at these figures, it appears the US is importing nearly 42% of the oil it needs to satisfy domestic demand and exporting nearly 50% of the oil it produces. The important takeaway still stands - the US is nowhere close to being energy independent.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        Even by your source the US produces 20.08 and export 9.5. 20 - 9.5 < 20 / 2. My numbers were also from the EIA. I rounded down though when I should have rounded up, so really more like 13 - 4 instead of 12 - 4. "Crude oil production in the United States, including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 "U.S. crude oil exports established a record in 2023, averaging 4.1 million barrels per day" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61584 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61584 I'm not sure why the EIA has these two different numbers between your source and mine. Probably because yours are a much wider term of just "petroleum" whereas mine are more directly "crude oil". So if we're talking refining, we should talk crude oil, so that's why I went with the numbers I did. Either way though, both data sets points to your statement of "we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce" is wrong. It points to your statement of "The US is unable to refine the oil it produces" as wrong. So we know you're definitely wrong about 2 out of your 3 claims so far. > the US is nowhere close to being energy independent. Consumption and production are about equal. Its trivial to convert a refinery from heavy sour to light sweet. It wouldn't be some massive long term extremely expensive change to swap. It just makes more sense to process and consume the cheap stuff and sell the expensive stuff while we've got the cheap stuff equipment still plugged in. Given that you didn't even know the US could refine domestic oil I think you'll understand why I don't exactly take your opinions on how difficult it would be to change a refinery over. Instead, I'll take the opinions of the people I know who design and worked in the oil refining industry for decades, and the knowledge I've gained by talking with them pretty in depth in how refineries work over the past 20+ years or so. So once again, if tomorrow global oil trade just stopped, then yeah we'd have a short-term problem. It would be a bad year for oil consumers (practically all of us). It wouldn't be some big death sentence oil-wise, because consumption and production are about equal, some consumption would die down due to higher costs, and it wouldn't take too long to retool the US refineries to only US produced oil. And most of that oil being exported goes out at ports also receiving oil, so retooling things to get the oil that was going out to go to the refineries originally designed for imports wouldn't be some massive task either.

vel0city 2y ago

Your claim was: > The US is unable to refine the oil it produces This is just entirely factually incorrect. The US can and does refine light, sweet crude. It wouldn't be a massive effort for more US refineries currently set to handle heavier and more sour crude to switch to it. More and more refineries have been making the switch especially since the time WTI went so low it went negative. Most of the rest of the world has a harder time processing heavier and more sour oils. The US led the world in refining technologies, so we have the knowledge and equipment to refine it. This is partially due to the US being so involved in Venezuela's oil industry growth, the US essentially built the refining technology to make Venezuela's oil filds useful and why they were so crushed when relations with the US went bad. Few other refiners are set up to process Venezuela's oil. So, it makes sense we buy the cheaper stuff we can easily process and sell the easy to process more expensive stuff on the world market. Cheaper refined products for us and we make more profit selling the easier stuff. You're still just wrong stating "The US is unable to refine the oil it produces". It wasn't until the Obama administration that the US could export oil on the world market. Have you ever stopped to wonder what we were doing with all that oil we were generating for so many decades?[0] Have you stopped to consider what we're doing with those 8 million barrels we produce every day that don't get exported today? [0] https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-08a04454def141049f848dba70144107 https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-co...

taylodl 2y ago
Okay - we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce. Is that better? The point is Americans believe the United States is energy dependent, and we are not. Not by a long shot.
- vel0city 2y ago
  > Okay - we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce. Is that better? The US produces ~12 million barrels a day. We export less than 4. 12 - 4 = 8. Which is bigger, 8/12 or 4/12? Which one is bigger than 1/2? Or are you saying we just dump 8 million barrels a day into the oceans or something? Have you ever stopped to wonder where that goes? And you still have no answer for what we did with all the oil we generated form the 70s until the 2015. Were we unable to refine most of that oil as well? Where did we put it all? So no, even saying "we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce" is still just factually incorrect. > The point is Americans believe the United States is energy dependent, and we are not. Not by a long shot. Sure, if all global oil trade stopped today refined products would get a lot more expensive overnight. Refineries would have to retool a bit. But overall, the US refines more oil than refined products we consume, so it would be a temporary thing.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Your figures are nowhere near correct according to the US Energy Information Administration, but then again, neither were mine. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Looking at these figures, it appears the US is importing nearly 42% of the oil it needs to satisfy domestic demand and exporting nearly 50% of the oil it produces. The important takeaway still stands - the US is nowhere close to being energy independent.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      Even by your source the US produces 20.08 and export 9.5. 20 - 9.5 < 20 / 2. My numbers were also from the EIA. I rounded down though when I should have rounded up, so really more like 13 - 4 instead of 12 - 4. "Crude oil production in the United States, including condensate, averaged 12.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 "U.S. crude oil exports established a record in 2023, averaging 4.1 million barrels per day" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61584 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61584 I'm not sure why the EIA has these two different numbers between your source and mine. Probably because yours are a much wider term of just "petroleum" whereas mine are more directly "crude oil". So if we're talking refining, we should talk crude oil, so that's why I went with the numbers I did. Either way though, both data sets points to your statement of "we're unable to refine most of the oil we produce" is wrong. It points to your statement of "The US is unable to refine the oil it produces" as wrong. So we know you're definitely wrong about 2 out of your 3 claims so far. > the US is nowhere close to being energy independent. Consumption and production are about equal. Its trivial to convert a refinery from heavy sour to light sweet. It wouldn't be some massive long term extremely expensive change to swap. It just makes more sense to process and consume the cheap stuff and sell the expensive stuff while we've got the cheap stuff equipment still plugged in. Given that you didn't even know the US could refine domestic oil I think you'll understand why I don't exactly take your opinions on how difficult it would be to change a refinery over. Instead, I'll take the opinions of the people I know who design and worked in the oil refining industry for decades, and the knowledge I've gained by talking with them pretty in depth in how refineries work over the past 20+ years or so. So once again, if tomorrow global oil trade just stopped, then yeah we'd have a short-term problem. It would be a bad year for oil consumers (practically all of us). It wouldn't be some big death sentence oil-wise, because consumption and production are about equal, some consumption would die down due to higher costs, and it wouldn't take too long to retool the US refineries to only US produced oil. And most of that oil being exported goes out at ports also receiving oil, so retooling things to get the oil that was going out to go to the refineries originally designed for imports wouldn't be some massive task either.