It's because of refining capacity. The US is really good at oil refining. We can refine more oil than any other country. We can refine more oil than we are producing ourselves. We import oil, refine it into things like gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, lubricants, etc, and then export those products all over the world.
Earlier, I mentioned that the US produces ~13 million barrels of oil a day, but we have the capacity to refine up to 18 million barrels a day. We import that oil, or we leave our refiners sitting idle. You might think we could just increase production, but even under President Trump, we hit the peak around 13 million barrels of production. It's hard to justify drilling more in the US when the Saudi's are selling it for cheaply.
It's because of refining capacity. The US is really good at oil refining. We can refine more oil than any other country. We can refine more oil than we are producing ourselves. We import oil, refine it into things like gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, lubricants, etc, and then export those products all over the world.
Earlier, I mentioned that the US produces ~13 million barrels of oil a day, but we have the capacity to refine up to 18 million barrels a day. We import that oil, or we leave our refiners sitting idle. You might think we could just increase production, but even under President Trump, we hit the peak around 13 million barrels of production. It's hard to justify drilling more in the US when the Saudi's are selling it for cheaply.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273579/countries-with-the-largest-oil-refinery-capacity/