The US Energy Information Administration said on Thursday that US refiners have maintained higher-than-normal run rates this year, buoyed by strong margins stemming from tight global supplies of refined fuel products.
* Refinery utilization has averaged more than 95% of capacity between May and September, the highest for those months since 1998, the EIA said.
* “This year the refinery runs were driven largely by tight global supplies for distillate fuel oil, leading to high international demand for US distillate fuel oil exports,” the EIA said.
* Diesel prices have hit record highs due to a global shortage caused by the Iran war and Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries.
* To ramp up production, the Trump administration has been coaxing refiners to produce more diesel as prices surge.
* US refinery utilization has averaged 92% from May to September since 1991, compared with 88% across the other seven months, the EIA said.
* While refinery utilization was the highest since 1998, total US refinery output was the highest only since 2019 because refining capacity has decreased by 4% since then, the EIA said.
* US refinery utilization in the first three weeks of October decreased from its summer highs but remained above the five-year (2021–2025) seasonal average, the EIA said.
(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)