alt Hacker NewsQuestion: I don't know much about US oil, but hasn't Trump been bragging endlessly about being oil independent? If so, why is this a story?
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Oil self-sufficiency isn't quite as simple as oil production > oil exports because not all crude is the same and refineries generally aren't completely crude-type-agnostic. IIRC US refineries prefer processing "heavy" (higher proportion of longer hydrocarbons) and "sour" (higher sulfur proportion) crude but most US production is "light" (higher proportion of shorter hydrocarbons) and "sweet" (lower sulfur proportion), so as a result the US still ends up importing/exporting a bunch of crude.
Because what the US produces is just a kind of oil. Not all oil is the same, IIRC the US produces mostly light crude.
Releasing barrels lowers the price but it's obviously only a temporary measure.
I think it's a story as the cease fire with Iran is about to run out
USA exports a lot of oil, but that cannot be used by the US oil refineries, which need to import oil, or take it from reserves.
Therefore USA is not oil independent, despite being a net exporter.
The amount the US produces is a larger number than the amount that the US consumes.
But what the US produces is not necessarily what the US consumes.
Oil markets are global and there is tons of trading going on, so it's not really at all a "fully in house" operation.