OK, I understood what you said above but if we imported less and instead of exporting excess(wouldn’t be excess if we didn’t import as much) finished product out of the country, sold it here, wouldn’t that bring prices down?
Let me add to that. If prices came down wouldn’t demand go up, people would drive more, boat more etc? To the point they wouldn’t have to cut back on production.
IF we imported less crude (only to our domestic demand, no exporting of products), we would idle more refineries, lose more jobs.
If the local stocks went up and drove the margin of gasoline price above crude price down, it would only be temporary. We would not continue to refine more than we use. We would have to shut down more refineries. And settle back to a price position I believe would be higher prices with less competition making less gasoline.
So then when our economy recovers, our demand go up, we would have to import more products from other countries.
I cannot believe having excess refining capacity is a bad thing. This IS the position we want to be in.