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It is a common misconception that refiners set the price of gasoline. But, in fact, refiners are price takers—not price makers.

We get it. If supply and demand are what determine gasoline prices, you would think mandatory storage of even more gasoline in California might help to keep prices lower for consumers. But it’s not that simple. In fact, mandating that refiners keep significant volumes of gasoline in inventory ALL THE TIME is a recipe to raise everyday fuel costs in the California market and potentially reduce supplies of fuel available to Arizona and Nevada. And what’s worse, there’s no evidence that having more fuel in inventory would stop the occurrence of price jumps.

The U.S. refining industry has a widespread economic impact on our nation. It supports millions of American jobs and pumps billions of dollars into the economy, as documented by the new AFPM report Economic Contributions of U.S. Petroleum Refineries. Report highlights, based on the latest full year of data available through IMPLAN (2022), are featured in this blog.

Every day, U.S. consumers purchase more than 350 million gallons of gasoline to get to work and school, to go on vacation and to see family. But what goes into the price we pay for gasoline?

As we enjoy watching our favorite Olympic events and proudly tally Team USA medals, we can’t help but spot petrochemicals and their supporting role in the Games as well — in our athletes’ high-performance uniforms and sporting equipment, in the flags, nets and world-class venues on display throughout Paris.

Some have taken issue with our choice to describe EPA’s new regulation for model year 2027-2032 passenger vehicles as a “ban on most new gas cars,” and have accused us of exaggerating the administration’s policies. We’d like to explain, once again, why we talk about the policy this way.

If you were asked to name the safest U.S. manufacturing industries, would petrochemical manufacturing and fuel refining be your top two choices? If so, you’d be right.

From June 1 to September 15 every year, nearly all gasoline sold in the United States is required to be a “summer” gasoline which is different in a few key ways from the gasoline sold during the rest of the year.

The beginning of the summer season also marks the start of the long hurricane season. While summer lasts for three short months, hurricane season hangs around much longer, from June 1 to November 30.