America’s Oil Refineries Are Going All Out

It’s never been a better time to turn oil into gasoline and diesel, and the United States refining industry is processing every drop it can.

America’s refineries are currently running at over 97% utilization, up slightly from the week prior, according to the Energy Information Administration, and at their highest rate since 2018. In the Gulf Coast refining complex specifically, refining capacity has been above 95% for 19 straight weeks, well surpassing the previous record of 15 weeks in 2022, according to Gulf Oil advisor Tom Kloza.

Meanwhile, refiners are putting off whatever maintenance they can. But refineries may have to undertake the large-scale, prescheduled “turnaround” operations that happen in the fall, and can take facilities offline for months.

The reason? It pays to wait. The “crack spread” — which measures the margin of refining three barrels of oil into two barrels of gasoline and one of diesel — sits at over $72.

“This is historically unprecedented,” Kloza told me, referring to both the continuously high levels of utilization for American refiners and the margins they’re receiving for running so continuously. “It’s insane.”

The insanity is the result of not one but two overlapping crises in the global fossil fuel industry. And while one (the protracted closure of the Strait of Hormuz) is in superposition between deterioration and resolution, the other (the relentless Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries) shows no sign of letting up. Both crises contribute to the increasing unavailability of refined products like gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel, the scarcity of which has sent prices soaring.

Russia has banned diesel exports at least through September, leaving a hole that can be filled, at least in part, by American exports to the rest of the world. Diesel exports stand at around 1.8 million barrels per day, up from around 1.2 million a year ago.

One major refinery in New Brunswick, Canada that helps supply the Northeastern U.S. — which relies on diesel as a heating fuel in winter — is due to shut down for maintenance for over two months starting in September. Other refineries, however, have “basically every incentive right now to defer maintenance as long as they can,” considering the high profits they can get, Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told me.

While refineries are designed to run up to (and maybe even slightly above) 100% utilization, “occasionally when you do run really hard, there can be some issues that come up from time to time,” DeHaan said. “Not all maintenance can be pushed.”

Even if U.S. refineries are operating as, uh, well-oiled machines, there’s another risk at this time of year beside mechanical issues: hurricanes.

While meteorologists expect this to be a below average hurricane season due to the above average El Niño stalking the Pacific, big storms can still knock out refining capacity on the Gulf Coast, where around half of the U.S. refining industry is located.

“If there’s a hurricane, they’re going to have to throttle back, and that will push the prices right up even more,” DeHaan said. A “perfect storm,” he said, could send those crack spreads up by another $20 to $30 a barrel. And yet he also noted that “it’s looking less and less likely that we’re going to see a perfect storm. El Niño is doing a great job mitigating risk for us.”

Even without adding a hurricane to the mix, fuel prices are high enough for anyone who uses diesel or heating oil — including truckers, farmers, and, eventually, New Englanders — to constitute a predicament.

“What we’re seeing now is extraordinarily rare to see,” DeHaan said, referring to the high level of output from U.S. refineries.

Nationwide, average diesel prices are $5.62 a gallon, according to AAA, up from $5.30 a month ago and $3.71 a year ago. In California, the number one agricultural exporter among the 50 states, diesel is $7.21 a gallon, hitting farmers (and eventually consumers) hard, as grapefruit, peaches, plums, apricots, avocadoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, and figs (to name just a portion of the state’s bounty) are harvested in August and September.

The high level of exports has helped drive down inventories of distillate fuel, which are at their lowest level for this time of year since the EIA started keeping records in 1982.

The tightness of the market means that refineries are likely to be pushed near their limit. If any one goes off line — whether for maintenance or weather or anything else — it will likely mean a windfall for everyone else who can stay online.