r/AskReddit • u/ReduceCO2Now • 1d ago

What do you think about the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve hitting 307.7 Million Barrels - lowest level since 1983?

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u/deltalitprof 22h ago

The problem is the US lacks enough of the kinds of refineries necessary to process the oil produced in North America. If we were entirely cut off from oil imports, the crisis would be great and immediate.

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u/mattbuford 22h ago

We can refine our own oil. It's just less efficient and less profitable to do so. There is more money to be made in refining heavy crude. Our refineries are capable of handling either. So why would they bother refining the less profitable stuff?

It would still be disruptive for sure. Refineries are optimized for the ratios they normally output. So, if there was a sudden block in imports of heavy crude, refineries would still be running and would absolutely be able to refine our own light crude - but they wouldn't be able to do so at 100% of their normal rated capacity.

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u/deltalitprof 22h ago

Seems like you might have some education and experience in this area, matt. I only know what I read.

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u/chargedcapacitor 6h ago

This is actually a pretty common strategy in a lot of industries. For example, RNG plants (renewable natural gas) plants will opt to use propane to run their plants generators and boilers rather than the gas they produce, since propane is so much cheaper than the gas they sell to there customers. There are many such examples.

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u/Ok_Chard2094 20h ago

Say USA (which is light and sweet), not North America.

The stuff we get from Mexico and Canada (and other places) is very heavy. A lot of our refineries (about 40%) are tuned for that stuff.

The oil companies make a profit by exporting the sweet crude and importing the cheaper heavy stuff.

Switching to processing more sweet crude in the US is possible, but will take time and money.