Why the U.S. Can’t Use the Oil It Produces

Texas chemical engineer here. not sure if you touched on this but a big reason we import oil to texas is due to texas’ unique oil refineries built to refine heavy hydrocarbons and generally “nasty oil”. many countries have no means of refining their oil and will sell their crude for cheap to the few countries that can refine it.

Your explanation of refineries leaves out an important detail: you can’t make all the products from any one kind of oil. To continue with your analogy, strawberry oil can only make butane, propane and gasoline, while chocolate oil can also make gasoline, but is the only thing that can make airplane fuel and bunker oil. Heavy oil makes heavy products, light oil makes light products. You can’t get everything we use from either kind.

Geologist here. Conventional oil isn't a "puddle," it exists in the pore spaces of porous reservoir rocks like sandstone and limestone. Shale has a much lower permeability, making fracking necessary to economically extract those hydrocarbons.

Around here (Delaware River), once home to the largest oil refining complex on the East Coast, eight refineries at its peak, only four remain due to deindustrialization and foreign competition. They import tons of crude from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela, Mexico, Norway, Scotland, Iraq, Newfoundland, Canada, Colombia, Gabon, Congo, Chad, and the former Soviet Union. Those refineries here were built to handle those types of crudes along with crude from Texas.

The United States has light sweet crude oil. Which refines almost one for one into gasoline. A little less into kerosene. We import heavy crude because you can get gasoline, diesel, kerosene, carbon chains used in plastics and even fine sand used in pool filters we get from heavy crude.

We will need oil even if it is no longer fuel. Still need it for medial supplies, lubricant's, computer parts, car parts, etc.

Chemical Engineer here, all 35 years of my experience has been in petroleum refining. Your video is surprisingly accurate but somewhat misleading. Economics and environmental permits/regulations are driving 95% of the decisions. It's just cheaper for a refinery to buy foreign oil than to spend $5 - 10 Billion (that's with a B) to convert just one refinery to American oil. In addition, it can easily take 5 - 10 years to get the permits that would allow you to make the conversion. And before the haters go off on "Yeah but refineries make $10 Billion a day" - they don't. Seasonally and during maintenance they can easily lose $10 MM plus per month. In addition, a refiner doesn't control the price of either its feedstocks or products, they float on their respective commodity markets so it's an incredibly high risk business with massive capital requirements and almost infinite liability. For comparison, imagine if Apple couldn't control the sales price of an iPhone.

All oil is not equal in chemical composition, hence not all oil can be used for the same purposes. Most of our oil is not fuel grade oil, although we do have sweet crude production. We trade our oil to countries that need what we have in exchange for the types of oil we need here in the U.S. There are also oils that are still to young to produce, the oil needs to cook a little bit longer. Oil and Natural Gas are the result of natural geologic processes, and as long as those processes continue, this planet will never run out of oil and natural gas.

How can you not mention the Jones Act? This plays a HUGE part in why the US exports and imports rather than moving it around our own country

I have worked in the oil and gas industry for years. When you talk about strawberry and chocolate oil you are somewhat mistaken. The difference is what they call heavy oil (Bitumen) and thin light crude oil. The technology to modify heavy oil into thin light crude oil exists and we use it in Canada a lot. We process it in an upgrader and then it can be refined in a regular refinery.

I worked in North Dakota in the oil. It was the cleanest oil, I ever seen.

Oil crunch in the U.S.A was in the 1970s not 1980s. I remember waiting in long lines early in the morning to get gas for my car to travel to college.

Since US oil is freely traded, it goes to the highest bidder which isn’t necessarily a US refinery. It can be cheaper for US refiners to purchase foreign crude rather than domestic.

The strawberry and chocolate analogy is good, but you could have also used the real technical terms in tandem for real informative and educational value

The 1% of rich Americans think of how to invest their money to increase their wealth during the recession. While the 99% of struggling hard-luck Americans think of how to survive without food and daily necessities in the recession and the coming hyperinflation. I am just about to make my first index fund purchase via vanguard. I intend to invest long term. just getting slightly stuck on how I balance my percentage portfolio between equity vs bonds. Low risk is good for me. Any tips

An interesting observation: the OPEC embargo was the 1973-74 winter, we waited in long lines to buy fuel. Alaska wasn't producing much oil yet, the pipeline was under construction. In May, 1974 we left Tacoma, WA for Fairbanks, AK. No gas shortages in Canada; it was man-made by US politicians and bureaucrats. Same thing in 1975, traveling from VA to CA, time was limited because I was taking my family home before I left for Germany (US Army). Got to Barstow, CA, middle of nowhere, need gas. Signs say no gas so I asked when they expected the tanker; he replied that they had plenty of gas but government regulations set limits on what they could sell each day. At midnight they opened the pumps for a new day.

Canadian crude is too thick to be pumped through the pipeline to U.S. refineries, so light oil must be shipped to Aberta to be mixed with Canadian crude so it can be pumped to the southern U.S. to be refined .

So 👉👈, what’s it gonna take to open those other 946 nuclear power plants!?

Ultimately in the end the shuffleing is how they control the the priceing.. When I was in High school ( im 80 now😅😅) I lived in south Texas just miles from Matamoros Mexico border town at Brownsville. We had the cheapest gas in America because the petroleum was driven across the border in tanker trucks 24/7 in a big.U turn circle into Mexico and ( imported back) into the Us and our gas was 12.9 cents a gallon for regular and 14.9 cents a gal for premiem. ( They didn't have no lead yet. It was great cause we were in the heyday of monster engine muscle cars.. It was a tax slight of hand trick. And diesel was protected by the DOE national cap to garantee the continued flow of US comerce. It was 9cents a galon for agg and rail and truckers. All us comodities move by diesel. Rail river( barges) and trucks. Right now the Mississippi is so low that barge traffic is highly difficult. If that river dries up it will cripple the largest supply chain in our country. No way trucking can meet the demand. Its a true crisis they aren't even mentioning it to the populas.Typical of our government. They never tell us about the real problems That would cause nation wide financial colapse and famin.( Not really important 😂) Dandahermit

Oil extracted here is already promised to foreign customers. The price of oil products depends on processing capacity. Fewer plants guarantee higher prices & higher prices mean much more profit from reduced production, & all the costs that go with it. Export means filling tank cars & sending them directly to ports along the shoreline. Simplicity.