May. 3 at 4:45 PM
Export limits
The re-routing of ships to the U.S. Gulf Coast is probably more of a wartime crisis measure than a permanent realignment of Asian buyers to the U.S.
Light sweet crude oil that the U.S. produces is a poor substitute for sour Middle East barrels because of the way many refineries are configured to optimize heavy feedstocks, Smith at Kpler said.
What’s more, U.S. oil exports are probably capped somewhere just above 5 million bpd just due to dock capacity, said Smith. Corpus Christi’s export capacity maxes out at about 2.6 million bpd due to pipeline constraints, but could probably handle another 500,000 bpd if pipelines were expanded, CEO Britton said.
The U.S., Latin America and West Africa can help supply incremental barrels to Asian buyers in need. But the Middle East is just too big of an oil producer to be replaced, Smith said. Some 20% of global oil supplies were exported through the strait before the war.
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