This article is an oversimplification. The US imports crude for the same reason they import any other raw material, to turn it into products. Gasoline sells for more than crude, guns sell for more...
This article is an oversimplification.
The US imports crude for the same reason they import any other raw material, to turn it into products. Gasoline sells for more than crude, guns sell for more than steel, etc.
The US imports 7.86M barrels per day, they export 8.5M, for a NET import of -0.63M.
Russia accounts for only 7% of US petroleum imports (including crude).
Refineries do cater to specific types of oil, but that is because different kinds of oils can produce different kinds of products (or at least do so at different rates of efficiency). You don't use light sweet or Texas intermediate to produce wax and roofing tar unless you want to go out of business quickly.
The US has specialized in conversion capacity, which is turning heavy crude into better products through cracking, that takes a significant investment to do and isn't something many other countries we export to have the investment/ability to do. So we import cheap oil from and export our expensive oil and refined products.
It's just good business to do so in a world of global trade.
I find it's best not to pay attention to articles about relatively slow moving industries when they're topical, but instead look at the articles written when it's not headline grabbing to publish them.
Crude is graded according to two main metrics, weight and sweetness. The weight of oil defines how easy it is to refine, or break down into its usable component parts, such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. Light crude is the easiest to handle, heavy is the most difficult, with intermediate obviously somewhere in between. The sweetness refers to the sulfur content of unrefined oil. The sweeter it is, the less sulfur it contains.
Most of the oil produced in the U.S. fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere is light and sweet, compared to what comes from the Middle East and Russia. The problem is that for many years, imported oil met most of the U.S.’s energy needs, so a large percentage of the refining capacity here is geared towards dealing with oil that is heavier and less sweet than the kind produced here.
This article is an oversimplification.
I find it's best not to pay attention to articles about relatively slow moving industries when they're topical, but instead look at the articles written when it's not headline grabbing to publish them.
Sources:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6
https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2018/06/14/why-the-us-must-import-and-export-oil
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-118
From the article: