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A comment on America produces enough oil to meet its needs, so why do we import crude?. Parent comment

Re:America produces enough oil to meet its needs, so why do ... by shagie on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @09:04PM (#30610151)
The refineries made a bet a few decades ago about what type of oil they'd be refining - the stuff from Venezuela, Canada and Russia - heavy sour.

This was advantageous for a while, but with fracking, there's an abundance of light sweet crude in the US... that the refineries aren't equipped to process. So, we export that oil.

Changing to light sweet crude is a significant investment to the point where switching over isn't economically viable.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444600/marketplace (the March 7th episode at 4:15 and on)

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Re:America produces enough oil to meet its needs, so why do ... by londons_explore on Wednesday March 09, 2022 @03:08AM (#30612068)
They could change over in a matter of days, but choose not to because processing heavy sour oil is more profitable - since it can be purchased cheaper.

If heavy sour were suddenly unavailable, they'd use light sweet in a heartbeat.

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