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Economy

Analyst Warns Of A Fuel Shortage Crisis In The U.S.

2022-05-22

See also here.

[OilPrice]

Low fuel inventories could lead to a crisis this summer in the U.S.

Refinery outages could be disastrous during this period of supply tightness.

Sankey: we've never seen inventories this low, particularly in the northeast.

Very low inventories of oil products in the United States and a shortage of refining capacity have laid the foundations for an oil shortage crisis in the United States this summer, Paul Sankey, Lead Analyst at Sankey Research, told CNBC in an interview on Thursday.

There is a global shortage of refining capacity, and currently the energy world "is completely insane", he noted.

Some 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of refinery capacity in America has been shut permanently since the start of the pandemic.

Why permanently, and what would it take to reopen it?

In the U.S., operable refinery capacity was at just over 18 million bpd in 2021, the lowest since 2015, per EIA data. Rising demand since economies reopened and people returned to travel, combined with lower refining capacity and very tight distillate markets have drawn down U.S. product inventories to below seasonal averages and at multi-year lows, with record-low inventories reported on the East Coast.

Posted by:NN2N1

#27 So all those suggestions by the Brandon administration to buy electric vehicles isn't panning out as hoped?

Posted by: Raj 2022-05-22 19:45

#26 If the government was really concerned

I think that's your problem, right there...

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-05-22 19:02

#25 Just remember the Feds make more money in taxes on gasoline and diesel than the oil companies make in profits from drilling refining transporting and selling gasoline and diesel
About $0.18 per gallon to the feds and $0.04 to your local price gouging money grubbing oil company
If the government was really concerned about gas prices they would suspend federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel until inflation was under control
After all diesel prices are driving food prices

Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2022-05-22 18:39

#24 #22 Now that's what I call thinking. Sign me up.

Posted by: Matt 2022-05-22 16:50

#23 Owner operator of several tractors paid $150. dollars for diesel Super Max. His tractors use $1000 dollars worth a day. Said he has all the equipment to make his own bio diesel. Trucker traveled out west and didn't have to shift gears on local fuel but having filled out west had to shift many times because of the poor quality of fuel. This garbage fuel is making its way to the east. Speculation currently is $10 dollars/gal mid summer. Should they put price caps expect closed stations as no fuel will be shipped losing money doing so.

Posted by: Dale 2022-05-22 16:48

#22 Texas and Louisiana should prioritize their own states for fuel. The rest of you can have our leftovers, except for California. You can figure out how to do things without relying on other states.

Posted by: Silentbrick 2022-05-22 16:46

#21 Just paid 5 bucks a gallon for 89 octane.

Posted by: Deacon Blues 2022-05-22 16:35

#20 ...I work with truckers - long haul and local - on daily basis, and they've been talking about diesel shortages for a couple weeks now.

Where I expect the problem to absolutely jump up and bite us in the ass is when the truckers flatly refuse to lose any more money - and that's coming. For instance, if it costs 5$ a mile to run the truck, but the baby food manufacturer is only paying $2, it's not going to matter how much the Air Force flies in.

It won't go anywhere.

Gonna be a long summer.

Mike

Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2022-05-22 16:05

#19 Fuel and energy shortages are driven by an abundance of regulation.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-05-22 15:42

#18 If big oil does not build refineries to keep pace, they can keep the prices artificially high. Also why they are constantly shut down for maintenance.

Posted by: Slappy 2022-05-22 15:28

#17 TW

1. Impossible to say because oil is bought and resold and resold so a barrel that was once Russian owned could go through several owners and eventually become English owned despite the boycott..

2. However, since early April to mid May, US crude stocks have decreased by about 15M barrels. This is a time when stocks are usually increasing to get ready for higher gasoline consumption in the summer.

Posted by: Lord Garth 2022-05-22 14:43

#16 yes, and the next regularly-scheduled refinery fire

Posted by: Frank G 2022-05-22 14:41

#15 And it occurs to me that we have problems every year as we change over to summer formulas from winter formulas. Any chance the current problem is at least partially connected to that?

Posted by: trailing wife 2022-05-22 14:40

#14 How much of America’s shortage results from oil now shipped to Britain and Europe to cover shortfalls from reduced consumption of Russian oil?

Posted by: trailing wife 2022-05-22 14:31

#13 The US had about 300 refineries back in the early 80s. There are about 130 today. Some refineries have had upgrades so capacity is about the same as it was in the early 80s, that is, about 18M b/d. At any given time some refineries are off line because of maintenance.

Small refineries were closed because they could not afford the cost of upgrades to meet various regulations.

The US imports some refined products and exports others depending on the location and the season.

Most petroleum experts will tell you that the US needs more refineries but the implementation of this is difficult. A lot of regulations to meet. A lot of environmentalists will oppose. Warm mongers will oppose, etc.

Posted by: Lord Garth 2022-05-22 14:17

#12 What happened to the rest of the refinery capacity?

Posted by: trailing wife 2022-05-22 13:22

#11 It's going to get a lot worse. There's no refining capacity left. You can't just spin up a refinery in a couple months.

Posted by: Oil Derek 2022-05-22 12:48

#10 per Energy Info Agency, gasoline stocks are about 10%-15% below long term averages, diesel stocks are about 15%-20% below

interestingly, demand for both gas and diesel is below last year, although not by

USA has a number of places with a concentration of refineries, the gulf coast from near Houston to near Gulfport is one of the biggest and they have been shut down because of hurricanes on many occassions

Posted by: Lord Garth 2022-05-22 12:26

#9

I guess my LMOE hord of Sta Bil stabilized ⛽ Gas will be put to use now soon.

Posted by: NN2N1 2022-05-22 12:09

#8 Not only that, but it all works because of people who didn't know they were rayciss nazi bigots who lacked the knowledge of 157 genders and proper pronoun usage.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-05-22 11:06

#7 ^ Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.

Posted by: Matt 2022-05-22 11:04

#6 ..have a finely-tuned sense of outrage and absolutely no understanding of how things are connected

It's all modern magic. Flip a switch and electricity comes on. Modern version of the cargo cult. Just got to find the wizard that knows the incantation.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-05-22 11:03

#5 As we all know Semi's run on diesel and without it things like food and medical supplies don't get delivered.

Not all of us. Some, usually the product of our finest universities, have a finely-tuned sense of outrage and absolutely no understanding of how things are connected. We know that diesel is bad and that food and medical supplies come from stores.

All complex systems are networks. Plumbers and electricians get it, as do scientists and engineers. Interconnections are what they deal with every day. This blindness seems to be a disease of people who work with words. A federal bureaucrat decide that cars will henceforth get 50 mpg, with no thought of how some automotive engineer will wrestle the laws of physics to make that happen. California bans internal combustion vehicles with no thought as to where the electrons to run their EV replacements will come from.

tl;dr: Don't worry about a fuel shortage. It's nothing price controls and a bit of government regulation can't fix.

Posted by: SteveS 2022-05-22 10:46

#4 ^ Only for Republicans trying to get to a polling place.

Posted by: Matt 2022-05-22 09:46

#3 My guess is we're only a few weeks away from fuel rationing.

Posted by: Besoeker 2022-05-22 09:35

#2 As we all know Semi's run on diesel and without it things like food and medical supplies don't get delivered

Biden: "Today, I have solved the fuel prices AND the supply chain issue. All deliveries will be by electric drones. Thank you"

Posted by: Frank G 2022-05-22 09:29

#1
Wanted to add a personal observation to this.

We made a day trip yesterday to South Henry County Ga.
(1-20 and a lot of Ga. Hwy's used)

We saw roughly about a 1/3 of the Fueling stations out of diesel. Mostly Middle Eastern GA to Madison.

Ridiculously prices gas was in plentiful supply.
Still NO 85/15 to be found its all 90/10???

Strange, Gasoline was actually cheaper the closer we got Metro-Atlanta???

We saw a few major chain Truck Stops out of diesel, loaded with parked rigs? Waiting for fuel we guess???

Summary:
As we all know Semi's run on diesel and without it things like food and medical supplies don't get delivered.

Posted by: NN2N1 2022-05-22 09:16

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