Since we’re now a net exporter of refined gasoline, I wonder if it’s simply more profitable to ship it where the cost of gasoline to, say, European consumers, is much greater?
I wonder how the average American would react to a dozen refineries suddenly going offline for six months, resulting in the price of gasoline doubling?
We are exporting fuel due to economics. Self-imposed economics.
With demand down, the oil companies have shut down their most inefficient refineries. For the most part, they were in the Northeast.
The result left the Gulf Coast long on refined products, the Northeast short.
Normally, that would be solved by shipping the Gulf Coast's excess production to the Northeast. However, there is no pipeline capacity available to handle the task -- environmentalists having stalled expansion of the pipelines serving this route.
How about shipping it by tanker then? Too expensive. Because US law mandates that all shipments between US ports must be handled by US flag ships and fully unionized crews.
It's actually less expensive to a.) export the excess refined products from the Gulf Coast to Caribbean markets and then b.) provide the Northeast with refined products shipped from Nigeria.