Written by Arate Somasekhar
Industry sources and analysts said that the United States’ refineries are not planning to make significant investments in tickets to process more local oil and less oil than the senior suppliers in Canada and Mexico.
Trump’s pledge to launch energy production in the United States and low consumer prices have focused on increasing domestic oil drilling. At the same time, his identification threats reduced raw imports from Canada and Mexico, which represents about a quarter of the American oil refineries operation, although in the end he decided to exempt energy imports.
The uncertainty about future commercial policy may make more local crude processing more attractive to American air conditioners, but the switch is not simple.
The United States mainly produces light rock mainly, which perfectly requires a different composition in refineries of density, Canadian and Mexican crude. More than 70 % of the processing capacity in the United States has been formed to operate heavier degrees, and the setup change can be a long and expensive process.
Reuters spoke to ten sources of industry, including refinery employees, executives and analysts, for this story, all of which agreed that these major investments are unlikely.
The source of the one refinery, who refused to name, said that all companies would explore the option to enhance the ability to treat additional light ore, adding that it will also take a few years and cost hundreds of millions.
“Nobody makes these investment decisions based on the very short -term market fluctuations,” Barbara Harrison, Vice President of Lotters in Chevron, told Reuters. She added that the sixth largest American recipe, according to the capacity, was currently satisfied with her ability to treat the refinery.
She said: “These investments do not occur overnight, and the construction does not occur, and the permit does not occur overnight. Therefore, you really need to ensure that your investment is parallel to the basics of the long -term market.”
Slowing the demand for gasoline due to growth in electric cars, as well as increasing competition from refineries in other countries, has already closed some American refineries, rather than investing in re -formation.
Independent Philips 66 in January 2025 expects gasoline demand to increase by 0.8 % worldwide, and 0.2 % in the United States plans the United States Refinery No. 4 to stop operations in its factory of 139,000 barrels per day (BPD) in Los Angeles later in 2025.
Lyondellbasell Industries has started to close the Houston oil refinery of 263,776 barrels per day earlier this year.
Crude oil imports in the United States will decrease by 20 % in 2025 to 1.9 million barrels per day, the lowest level since 1971, and the Energy Information Administration has expected in March, indicating the rise in American production and low demand for the refinery.
However, the US oil output is expected to be produced by the end of this decade despite Trump’s plans, a long -term inhibitor of refineries to build or modify units.
“Our point of view is the production of optical rock oil in the United States, which will reach its climax at one time in the first half of the thirties of the twentieth century,” said John Awers, the refined Fuels Analytics manager. “In contrast, we expect heavy (global) crude production to continue to grow in the 1940s. So I do not recommend refining refineries to convert.”
Great costs in time and money
AUERS and other industry sources said that increasing the ability to run in a medium -sized refinery can take years and cost up to hundreds of millions of dollars, said AUERS and other industry sources.
Exxon Mobil of Exxon Mobil products in the United States paid $ 2 billion to add the raw distillation unit 250,000-BPDs that manage light oil rock oil in Beauumont, Texas, a refinery in 2023. The upgrade took four years. Chevron, oil products No. 2, completed the update modification of its refinery in Pasadina, Texas, at the end of 2024 to expand the process of processing from lighter rocks by 15 % to 125,000 barrels per day. This costs about $ 475 million, “said Hillary Stephenson, Higher Director of Iir Energy at iir Energy. Chevron refused to comment on the investment.
Since the oil rock fields in the Bakin Basin in North Dakota and the Bermean basin in West Texas and New Mexico produced a flood of lighter crude, the refineries have already mixed more than that with imported heavy crude whose facilities were built to deal with.
However, they are close to the maximum in terms of the amount of raw they can mix, as multiple sources said.
In February and amid customs tariff threats, some independent filters said in February and the threats of customs tariffs that they could be burned from raw alternatives to the lighter alternative, but they warned that it might affect the use of refinery and refineries.
Lighter crude tends to produce higher quantities of naviga petrochemical oil and less than diesel diesel and the most profitable jet fuel, and operators can be forced to reduce the amount of crude they manage in general.
“There is a point where heavy raw materials have become limited, it affects the rate and production of clean products, and certainly our assets, and we expect the industry level,” said Gary Simons, Operations Director of Valero in February.
Industry sources said that if the customs tariff cut the supplies of Mexican and Canadian crude, it is likely that refining refineries will turn into two other similar oil suppliers, such as Colombia.
“Companies will need some certainty in politics and long -term regulations to make these major investments,” said Stevenson from IIR.
“Four years are not enough to make this type of capital spending and investment,” she added, referring to the length of an American presidential term.
(Participated in Arthhy Somasekhar reports in Houston; edited by Peter Henderson, Simon Web and Margareta Choi)
