Today we import about 7mbd of crude oil and export 5mbd of crude oil. We're a net exporter of over 4mbd of petroleum products.

Other countries restrict exports of critical products when supplies are low. Last year Chinese refineries banned exports from their refineries. Last month Indian government banned exports of rice to stabilize supply and price in India.

US SPR is at 40 year lows and crude inventory at Cushing is near tank bottoms. Gasoline prices near all-time high. Mexico, Canada, China, Netherlands, and South Korea are our top 5 customers.

It goes against the free market but the free market sucks when other countries play by different rules.

DallasAg 94 said:

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The type of crude we have is yucky stuff, so we have to export it for the sweet stuff.

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our dinosaurs sucked more than the Middle East dinosaurs did.

Dan Scott said:

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It goes against the free market but the free market sucks when other countries play by different rules.

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this is it. most international production is from state-run entities, so they have the ability to do this. biden waking up tomorrow and telling exxon and chevron they can't sell oil abroad to entities paying fair market value because they need to refill the SPR first is literal state-owns-the-means-of-production socialism, and we all know how we feel about that.

that and often what we produce and what we can refine are not the same grade of crude

Old McDonald said:

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Dan Scott said:

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It goes against the free market but the free market sucks when other countries play by different rules.

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this is it. most international production is from state-run entities, so they have the ability to do this. biden waking up tomorrow and telling exxon and chevron they can't sell oil abroad to entities paying fair market value because they need to refill the SPR first is literal state-owns-the-means-of-production socialism, and we all know how we feel about that.

that and often what we produce and what we can refine are not the same grade of crude

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US government regulates arms sales to foreign countries. I'd argue energy like weapons are just as important for national security and defense.

At the very least, F China. They ban exports of refined products but we continue to sell to them. China not playing by the same rules forces Americans to pay higher gas prices.

DallasAg 94 said:

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The type of crude we have is yucky stuff, so we have to export it for the sweet stuff.

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Not really. Permian oil is typically too sweet for our refineries. The yucky stuff in California has been in steep decline.

What gravity range is the shale play in west Texas compared to the sand or limestone formations?

Don't know off the top of my head, but most of Delaware Basin is very gassy. The "oil" is really high gravity wellhead condensate in lots of areas to the western margin.

BigOil said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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The type of crude we have is yucky stuff, so we have to export it for the sweet stuff.

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Not really. Permian oil is typically too sweet for our refineries. The yucky stuff in California has been in steep decline.

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The real yucky stuff is in Canada, Venezuela, Columbia, and as pointed out CA but it is rapid decline. Our shale crude is light and usually fairly sweet crude. The issue in the USGC is a lot of refineries are configured for heavy crude and can't run the shale crude in any meaningful quantities.

After we refill our reserves, yes. We should be an oil exporter

Taking a longer term outlook, we shouldn't export our oil. I don't mind importing oil from outside either - suck foreign nations dry while preserving our oil for the future.

Kansas Kid said:

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BigOil said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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The type of crude we have is yucky stuff, so we have to export it for the sweet stuff.

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Not really. Permian oil is typically too sweet for our refineries. The yucky stuff in California has been in steep decline.

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The real yucky stuff is in Canada, Venezuela, Columbia, and as pointed out CA but it is rapid decline. Our shale crude is light and usually fairly sweet crude. The issue in the USGC is a lot of refineries are configured for heavy crude and can't run the shale crude in any meaningful quantities.

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It would be pretty damned nice if the government would get out of the way and let some people build a refinery that could process the sweet stuff. But here we are

Reverse is true. Our refineries were built for the imported heavier "yucky" crudes so we import that and export sweeter lighter oil and of course refined products

We should refill the SPR , it should never have been drawn down and then export whatever we don't need here.

Buck Turgidson said:

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Taking a longer term outlook, we shouldn't export our oil. I don't mind importing oil from outside either - suck foreign nations dry while preserving our oil for the future.

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We have a plenty of oil

Dan Scott said:

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Old McDonald said:

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Dan Scott said:

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It goes against the free market but the free market sucks when other countries play by different rules.

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this is it. most international production is from state-run entities, so they have the ability to do this. biden waking up tomorrow and telling exxon and chevron they can't sell oil abroad to entities paying fair market value because they need to refill the SPR first is literal state-owns-the-means-of-production socialism, and we all know how we feel about that.

that and often what we produce and what we can refine are not the same grade of crude

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US government regulates arms sales to foreign countries. I'd argue energy like weapons are just as important for national security and defense.

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i'm actually inclined to agree with you. problem is, we live in a corporate oligopoly and the oil industry would unleash an army of lobbyists upon Washington to prevent this from happening. corporate media would be crying "socialism!" from the top of every building in the country.

For the OP, your commodity examples for India and China don't really work in comparison to oil production in the USA.

Billions of Americans aren't going to starve because there aren't Billions of Americans.

Our markets aren't some farce where the only real customer is the government.

If we don't produce enough oil, our market price adjusts. We appear to be OK paying $5/gallon at the pump. We're not even talking about rationing like the summer of 1979.

We have a comparative advantage at producing oil over most of the world. We have favorable geology, technological prowess, industrial base, legal regimes, and capital markets. We should export products that we make better than the rest of the world and import products that we're not the best at producing. That's how trade makes you rich. Simple as that.

We should export all we can, if only to help the trade imbalance. Strategically, get everyone hooked on our stuff. If there is shooting war, then you shut it off. See Japan in 1941.

TriAg2010 said:

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We have a comparative advantage at producing oil over most of the world. We have favorable geology, technological prowess, industrial base, legal regimes, and capital markets. We should export products that we make better than the rest of the world and import products that we're not the best at producing. That's how trade makes you rich. Simple as that.

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The US does more to handicap itself than any country in human history. It's mind boggling how stupid the Left has made us.

Reverse of what you said. US produces light sweet crude. The imports are the heavy dirty crude, which the bulk of refining capacity is currently set up for.

As a result, we export a lot of lightly refined light crude

Buck Turgidson said:

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Taking a longer term outlook, we shouldn't export our oil. I don't mind importing oil from outside either - suck foreign nations dry while preserving our oil for the future.

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BOOM

I keep telling y'all, the idea that our refineries cannot process sweet crude is false.

They cannot process sweet crude alone correct. They do need to blend it with sour crude, but they can still take some.

The conversion of refineries was a giant response to our domestic supply issues decades ago. The price of oil sucked, so we didn't drill. Could get a lot cheap ass, **** oil from Venezuela and other parts.

Fast forward to today, and technology changes allow refineries to blend in sweet crude. Literally every day is a different slate of feed and the process engineers can easily and quickly adjust operations to be at peak efficiency. It's pretty awesome.

The recent XOM BLADE unit that just started up makes diesel for export, but I'm uncertain what their feedstock is. However, the L in the acronym stands for light, so I'm wondering if they're taking in a strong mix of sweet crude.

Just my $0.02.

So the president released from the SPR in order to artificially lower prices in an effort to help his team with elections, and now OP's solution is for the government to tell companies they can't sell their product to certain people because we need to replenish the low SPR?