Comment by derektank
7 hours ago
The US on net exports 2.5M barrels a day, or roughly 10% of its total consumption, and the majority of its imports are from countries like Canada that are themselves net exporters and would be unlikely to retaliate against a US export ban.
There are definitely technical issues with refinery capacity, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable if the US seriously wanted to attempt an export ban, even in the short term. The fallout from the rest of the world in the form of other trade retaliations would likely be very serious though.
> There are definitely technical issues with refinery capacity, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable
If they were cheap or easy to solve, don’t you think US refineries would have already converted to support domestic crude? Domestic crude is cheaper than imported crude, the only reason to import is because it so expensive to convert a refinery. My, admittedly very limited, understanding is that you generally don’t convert refineries, it’s cheaper and easier to just build a new one that targets a new type of crude. Building refineries takes a few years, they’re not something you throw together in a few months when oil markets go crazy.