OilPrice.com As the U.S. national average price of gasoline hits $5 per gallon, higher fuel exports out of America are additionally sapping domestic fuel inventories, which are already at multi-year lows.  Reduced refining capacity since the start of COVID, low inventories, and strong post-COVID demand, alongside $120 a barrel crude, have sent U.S. gasoline prices soaring over the past months to reach a record-breaking $5 a gallon on average.
The White House is desperate to lower gasoline prices, which are the most important election issue for many Americans ahead of the mid-term elections in November. Ideas juggled by the Biden Administration range from invoking the Defense Production Act to boost refining capacity and output, to restrictions on oil exports. President Joe Biden also stepped up rhetoric toward oil companies, telling them in a letter sent this week to increase fuel production and noting that ârefinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable.â
Refiners have boosted exports of refined petroleum products this year, especially to Latin America, which isnât getting much fuel these days from Europe, which in turn is grappling with its own set of fuel supply troubles with the sanctions and embargoes on Russian oil after Putinâs invasion of Ukraine…
