Posted on 10/04/2026 6:11:58 AM PDT by MtnClimber
So here we are, with diesel at $6 a gallon.
Listening to the political conversation, you could easily come away thinking this all started when Iran went to war. In fact, it didn’t. Iran supplied the shock, but we had already built the vulnerability, which is a key distinction.
Yes, the war in the Middle East has disrupted oil flows and tightened global supplies. The Energy Information Administration says that tight global distillate supplies and elevated crude prices are pushing diesel prices higher. U.S. distillate inventories have fallen below their five-year range, while the loss of significant refining and petroleum-product supplies worldwide has tightened the market.
However, while that explains why diesel prices are so high right now, it doesn’t explain how we became so vulnerable to price shocks.
The reality is that America still produces enormous quantities of crude oil. The trouble is that crude oil is not diesel. Before it reaches the tank of the truck delivering your groceries, somebody has to transport it, refine it, and distribute it—and that brings us to the question nobody seems especially interested in asking:
What happened to the refineries?
The newest major U.S. refinery came online in 1977.
There is a technical footnote here. A 45,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Galveston began operating in 2022. Forty-five thousand barrels a day. In the world of American refining, that is practically a microbrewery.
The newest refinery with significant downstream capacity, then, is Marathon’s Garyville, Louisiana, refinery, which began operating in 1977. It has since been expanded to roughly 617,000 barrels per day.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Don’t discount the fact that they have to mollify leftist governments and cannot tell the truth without risking destruction.
PG&E in Commiefornia proved this when they went bankrupt after fire lawsuits. In court the company finally told the world that wind and solar cost 3 times as much as gas so when forced to install it without raising rates the only thing they could do was cut back on maintenance. When asked why they didn’t make this known to rate payers the answer was they were afraid to anger their regulators.
Any luck with gaining authorization to BUILD more refinery capacity?
“ I thought it would at least spend some paragraphs describing “Cat’ Cracking.””
Catalytic cracking provides much gasoline blendstock. It’s not as common in Europe and other places with a high demand for diesel and kerosene. Hydrocracking provides those fuels and is more common there.
Exactly. Everybody’s looking at Trump re high prices when we should be looking at that lunatic aunt Sophie and her environazi greenie insanity and not letting us build refineries. So to speak.
Not sure what you are getting at?
It is my belief that one world government power brokers want an economically interconnected/dependant world economy. Russia got fertilizer and diesel production. US is to de industrialize, China heavy industry and manufacturing. Trump upset the apple cart
Cal sends gas to AZ NV for sure, 2 refinery closed
1 in Wilmington LA county 12/25 the other in San Francisco Bay 4/26
Cal is importing gas from Bermuda thru the Panama canal
Compare 423 ton-miles/gallon for a locomotive vs. a typical 18-wheeler.
That's about a 3.25-to-1 advantage for rail. In other words, rail can move the same tonnage the same distance using roughly 69% less diesel.
Freight rail is extraordinarily fuel-efficient compared with trucking.
Refinery Mismanagement means Democrat obstructionism.
While the dollar figures are out of date, the basic thrust of this speech from 2005 are on target.
“I’ve been dressed down many times here on FR because we were left with people like Mitt Romney, John McCain, Bob Dole, etc. Who do you vote for when that is all there is left?”
I guess Obama, Obama, and Bill Clinton...at least based on their twisted logic.
“What the arseholes did not note was that there are limited pipelines running parallel to the coast.”
The biggest problem our side has is accepting that Democrat leaders are FAR SMARTER than we are (otherwise they’d be competing with the Libertarians for 3% of the populace, given their political positions and voting history). In fact what shows it best is when we think they’re dumb, or don’t know the facts, and thus can can be reasoned with.
To put it another way, they knew FULL WELL that the pipelines didn’t exist, but that works GREAT for them, since it means less energy for California, and thus heads the state in the direction they prefer, which is BACKWARDS.
So the soaring prices are being blamed on “mismanagement”…
Funny how that mismanagement suddenly became a problem the moment the war with Iran started.
Coincidence? Maybe. But the timing is certainly interesting.
“With modern techniques of so-called “catalytic distilling,” that traditional ratio can be changed to where a column of crude can give something like 95% gasoline and 5% of the others. Diesel, bunker fuel, home heating oil, etc. used to be cheap because every barrel of gasoline caused lots of these low profit products to be made, too. But these products are no longer excess associated products sold for low cost. They now have to be deliberately made and are no longer “along for the ride.””
Someone played attention to detail.
Correct.
Modern Vis Breakers and Fluid Catalytic Crackers , and Delayed Cokers can crack and coke virtually any of the gas oil and heavier fractions of a barrel of crude. Down to the individual CH2 molecules level then you use zeolites or platinum metal group cats to dimer and trimer them to any CHa+CH2 chain, ring or isomer the heart desires its how much energy , time and effort do you wish to invest.
PAO that’s polyalphaolefins are stitched together molecule by molecule from cracked ethane into ethylene and then CH2 for example its why real synthetic group IV PAO base oils are $12 per quart its a boutique product.
Diesel used to be the stuff that condensed out right after kerosene in the frac column it was black thick and loaded with sulfur and benzene rings. Now it’s a custom made 15ppm max sulfur product that is hydrogen treated at the molecular level to remove sulfur and crack those benzene and other aromatics which are massive carcinogens to branched or linear isomers thus making them paraffins or waxes which also are removed and longer carcinogenic. Diesel today is clear , and thin it looks more like gasoline than gas oil of the last. One of the reasons diesel fuel injectors had to change their nozzle seats is diesel lacks its former lubricant properties sulfur was and is a fine lubricant.
So correct diesel is made on propose now and with great efforts to hit a very tight ppm max of S and also have enough centane index to fire off under compression. Taking the carcinogenic rings out raises its centane index but shifting to lighter CH2 chains lowers it still USA diesel is 45-55 centane and some of the best in the world its why we export it. That and the EU will pay $12 a DGE for it vs $6 here and it only costs $2 or less per gallon to ship it via bulk tanker across the ocean.
Valero Shut Benecia Refinery down early and took a 1.23 billion tax loss, effectively meaning nothing can be done there again, as a biggest FU to the State of CA possible.
CA was begging them to sell the property.
All this BS over a state law requiring 1 million gallons of gas be kept in reserves at the refineries “to mitigate fluctuation at the pump” that the Democrats refused to negotiate on
The diesel price increases also align with Ukraine doing drone strikes on Russian refineries. Trump tried to convince them to stop that tactic, but they did not comply.
“The diesel price increases also align with Ukraine doing drone strikes on Russian refineries.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Blaming the diesel-price increase primarily on Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian refineries misses the much bigger factor: the war involving Iran has indeed severely disrupted the global oil and refined-fuel market.
The conflict has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global energy supplies, while refineries and petroleum infrastructure across the Gulf have also been affected.
IMPORTANT:
The EIA reports that these Middle East disruptions sharply tightened international refined-product supplies and pushed diesel refining margins higher. In fact, current market estimates indicate that the Iran-related disruption removed roughly 770,000 barrels per day of Middle Eastern diesel supply, compared with about 350,000 barrels per day of Russian supply losses over the same March–August period. That means the Iran war has been a substantially larger direct shock to global diesel availability than the Russian refinery attacks. Ukrainian strikes may have contributed to the pressure, but treating them as the main explanation ignores the far larger disruption occurring in the Middle East.
The simplest explanation is that diesel prices are being driven by a combination of tight global inventories, disrupted refining capacity, and — above all in the current period — the massive supply and transportation shock created by the Iran war.
The middle east oil shipments are almost up to normal levels. The muslim “refugees” in Europe sure seem to be making themselves welcome. Iran nuke strikes in Europe would be icing on the cake, but Trump is trying to stop that even though Europeeing politicians are trying to stop him.
Annual Operable Atmospheric Crude Oil Distillation Capacity (Barrels per Calendar Day, USA)
Year Capacity (b/cd)
—— -———————
1982 17,889,734
1983 16,859,337
1984 16,137,141
1985 15,658,769
1986 15,458,948
1987 15,565,513
1988 15,915,418
1989 15,654,874
1990 15,571,966
1991 15,675,627
1992 15,696,155
1993 15,120,630
1994 15,034,160
1995 15,434,280
1997 15,451,785
1999 16,261,290
2000 16,511,871
2001 16,595,371
2002 16,785,391
2003 16,757,370
2004 16,894,314
2005 17,124,870
2006 17,338,814
2007 17,443,492
2008 17,593,847
2009 17,671,550
2010 17,583,790
2011 17,736,370
2012 17,322,178
2013 17,823,659
2014 17,924,630
2015 17,967,088
2016 18,317,036
2017 18,617,027
2018 18,598,497
2019 18,802,435
2020 18,976,085
2021 18,127,700
2022 17,943,810
2023 18,060,369
2024 18,384,228
2025 18,423,493
2026 18,160,493
I also tried looking up domestic consumption, but got wildly different answers, from one search to another. Clearly it has decreased, as we were a large importer of refined products in 1982, and the US has been a large exporter of refined products in recent years.
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