Markets & Supply

Limiting California’s access to the exact types of crude oil its facilities need will only increase prices for the state’s consumers and travelers. Drivers are already dealing with gasoline prices in excess of $5 per gallon and the highest fuel taxes of the 50 states. Confining energy producers and consumers to a smaller pool of crude oil will make a very sensitive price environment that much worse.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – "Federal policy is discouraging supply by shutting down pipelines, putting future production off limits, talking down the future of the petroleum business, and imposing expensive requirements on refineries, chief among them a burdensome Renewable Fuel Standard. The Administration is blaming others when it ought to take a sober look at its own energy policy."

COVID-19 upended energy markets. Demand disappeared and producers scaled back. Now that economies are reopening, and the demand for goods and services is rebounding, the demand for energy all along the supply chain is increasing, driving up not only the cost of the feedstocks and fuels refineries and petrochemical manufacturers use, but also the cost of the energy used at every step of the supply chain.

Right now, members of Congress are debating a series of taxes as part of the multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation package that could make the crude oil that runs through U.S. refineries more expensive.

Refineries are not the story when it comes to retail gasoline prices. Raw materials (in this case crude oil) account for the biggest share of the final price consumers pay.

The United States is the now largest producer of crude oil and has the largest, most complex and most efficient refining industry in the world. Yet two of our most important oil trading partners are those that share our borders: Canada and Mexico.

Visit AFPM’s Hurricane and Weather Event Resource Center for more information on steps being taken to ensure the safety of our members’ facilities, their employees and the communities that surround them.

This week, AFPM joined API and industry associations representing fuel retailers, gasoline marketers, convenience stores and tank truck carriers to field questions from the media about the ongoing fuel distribution challenges resulting from the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.

AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson addresses the 2021 AFPM Annual Meeting