U.S. refinery capacity virtually unchanged between 2017 and 2018 (6/27/2018)

As of January 1, 2018, U.S. operable atmospheric crude distillation capacity totaled 18.6 million barrels per calendar day (b/cd), a slight decrease of 0.1% since beginning of 2017 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) recently released Refinery Capacity Report. Annual operable crude oil distillation unit (CDU) capacity had increased each of the five years before 2018 and has remained greater than 18 million b/cd since January 1, 2016. The capacities of secondary units that support heavy crude oil processing and production of ultra-low sulfur diesel and gasoline, including thermal cracking (coking), catalytic hydrocracking, and hydrotreating/desulfurization, increased slightly from year-ago levels. These downstream capacity increases are primarily the result of debottlenecking-when refineries increase the throughput of existing infrastructure-rather than large new builds (Figure 1). ... More »