Impending Oil Supply Shortages

[william]

Oil Refinery Statistics in US 2026 | Capacity, Output & Key Facts​

The United States petroleum refining industry sits at a genuine inflection point in 2026 — one where decades of infrastructure dominance, record-breaking export performance, and some of the highest-capacity facilities on the planet are running alongside a wave of closures, shrinking margins, and a structural shift toward renewable fuels that is beginning to permanently reshape the domestic refining map.

Understanding the US refining industry in 2026 requires holding two realities simultaneously. On one hand, the country’s refining complex remains the most productive in the world: On the other hand, the critical margin between crude oil input costs and refined product selling prices — have been declining steadily since their post-pandemic peak in 2022, making marginal and mid-size refineries increasingly unviable. Refinery margins for gasoline and diesel fell approximately 26–29% year-over-year in 2024, and the EIA’s own forecasts project US refining capacity will shrink to approximately 17.9 million b/cd by end of 2025 — a 3% contraction driven entirely by closures. For the world’s largest refining nation, that is a significant structural adjustment — and it is happening faster than most market observers anticipated.

Oil Refinery Statistics in US 2026 | Capacity, Output & Key Facts - The World Data

Oil Refining in America 2026 The United States petroleum refining industry sits at a genuine inflection point in 2026 — one where decades of infrastructure dominance, record-breaking export performance, and some of the highest-capacity facilities on the planet are running alongside a wave of...

theworlddata.com

Refinery closures and rising consumption will reduce U.S. petroleum inventories in 2026 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov