Perhaps It's Not an Oil Bottleneck: But a Refinery Bottleneck

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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President Donald Trump will meet Tuesday with U.S. oil refiners and fuel distributors at the White House as his administration looks for ways to expand domestic refining capacity and lower gasoline prices.

The latest U.S. Energy Information Administration data show U.S. refineries operated at 97.4% of operable capacity during the week ending August 21. Gulf Coast refineries ran at 97.0%, while total U.S. operable capacity stood at about 18 million barrels per day.

A White House official said the administration wants “concrete, near-term steps” to increase refining capacity rather than relying only on new refineries, which can take years to build.
LOL The refineries are running at full capacity NOW! Just what are they expected to do?
Refinery construction is unwelcome in many states and in some states forced to close via stricter environmental regulations being imposed.
Those stricter environmental regulations may have some blowback.[1]

*Notably, the global industrial economy runs on usable fuels, particularly diesel, making refinery output and product availability super critical.*Persistent disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, Russian energy export restrictions, and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have compounded the squeeze into crisis territory, leaving fuel markets vulnerable to further supply shocks.

limited refining capacity leaves little room for further disruptions.

“It’s pretty, pretty tight and inflexible out there as far as the market is concerned,” Hardy told an industry conference in Singapore on Tuesday. He noted that product stockpiles are near their lows and continue to slide.

The world oil market & refinery system is finely tune easily disrupted.

Mark Senn, senior vice president of global trading at US processor Phillips 66, warned, "We came into this shock with very little flex" in the refining system, adding that the US system is running at full capacity.

You may have noticed the price of diesel is sky high.
The food that is delivered to your grocery store is via semi trucks.

A good explanation of the complexity of the global oil Marketspace & how it affects the USA:

In any case, even if the Iran War is settled tomorrow & the Strait is completely open; it will take time [how much time I don’t know] before gasoline diesel p & grocery prices drop. Also interest rates worldwide have increased due to inflationary pressure from fuel shortage. It will take time for that to subside also.

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If only we had taken the steps, at any time over the past few decades, to diversify away from petroleum. This is a problem of our own making. It was avoidable.

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The US electrical grid is in no way prepared for a complete transition to a EV transportation mode of travel.

US government interest is for continued interventionism. And even when citizens vote against that; we continue to receive it. Could it be that our representatives listen to special interests with cash in hand?

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Rubbish.

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False premise. Nobody is saying “complete”. Heck, Norway isn’t “complete”. In spite of their prodigious new EV sales it’s still just 30% of cars on the road that are EVs. It takes a long time to sweep old product off the roads.

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Some opposing or questioning views.

the volume of EV sales, where they occur and when, what kinds of EV charging are being done and when, regulator and political decisions, and critically, economics.

Palo Alto’s government has set a very aggressive Sustainability and Climate Action Plan with a goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 level by the year 2030.

To meet Palo Alto’s 2030 emission-reduction goals, the city, which owns and operates the electric utility, would like to increase significantly the amount of local renewable energy being used for electricity generation (think rooftop solar) including the ability to use EVs as distributed-energy resources ( vehicle-to-grid (V2G) connections).

Peak loading is the primary concern. Palo Alto’s electrical-distribution system was built for the electric loads of the 1950s and 1960s, when household heating, water, and cooking were running mainly on natural gas. The distribution system does not have the capacity to support EVs and all electric appliances at scale, Marshall suggested.

Palo Alto’s electrical-distribution system needs a complete upgrade to allow the utility to balance peak loads, manage two-way power flows, install the requisite number of EV charging ports and electric appliances to support the city’s emission-reduction goals, and deliver power in a safe, reliable, sustainable, and cybersecure manner.

The situation in Palo Alto is not unique.

Billions if not trillions will need to be invested to upgrade electric grid even in cities fully in support a complete EV conversion.

Even with a gradual transition [2050] this article sez its iffy.

https://medium.com/steves-tech-talk/the-grid-that-cant-keep-up-why-ev-adoption-outpaces-infrastructure-c1df37edbbd6
The Grid That Can’t Keep Up: Why EV Adoption Outpaces Infrastructure

Then we need to look at what people are actually buying:
https://insideevs.com/features/806882/hybrids-sales-soaring-bad-news-evs/
Sales Of Hybrids Are Soaring. That’s Bad News For EVs
It sounds to me that people are probably sticking with what they know.

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Funny how people aren’t saying the same thing about data centers…

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The US electric grid would be prepared had we taken steps…

The Captain

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I have questioned data centers especially in my back yard. And I believe so has Wendy.

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Oh Captain that money MUST be spent on bipartisan foreign interventionalism.

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You conflated past and present and now you want out?

The Captain

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And data centers can be sucking the juice within a year or two, the transition to EVs will take decades. But sure, let’s put all the blame on EVs.

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I have always been told that peak loads are in the daytime hours. Most manufacturing, ACs, washer and dryers running. etc. This is only a guess on my part, but I would imagine most EV charging takes place overnight. So wouldn’t’ that help balance the loading?

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It is the system. Citizens don’t like it but our representatives of both political parties are bought.
American’s support for Israel is low.

Who is appointed to Foreign Affairs Committee in the United States House of Representatives? 3 pro-Israel reps.

Americans I believe believe they cannot fight or outbid the system. So those who can save money to pad themselves from our uncontrolled government.
Unfortunately more & more Americans fall due to income inequality and unaffordability of living. When does this reach a powder keg of rebellion??? Hopefully I will be dead within 10 years and won’t be affected. And I have no spawn to worry about either.

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“Psychologically, we suffer from a form of generational narcissism: it is hard for us to imagine the universe continuing to function smoothly after we are gone. If our time is up, the world’s time must be up too”. Dr. Jean Twenge

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Nah The elites have won. I long concluded it doesn’t matter which b*stards are running things.

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I don’t spend a lot time thinking about it. Most of what one wants is largely within their control. In terms of investing, optimism is an essential component.

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Now you are changing the subject.

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Here we agree, America ain’t what she used to be. In a sense “We can” turned into “Give me” but not only at the elite level.

I asked AI but I won’t post the reply. :innocent:

The Captain

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Terrible philosophy, One is often bad and always disorganized. The other is evil, and functions in lockstep.

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