Light sweet crude

Oil is sometimes call black gold but that is misleading in one respect. Gold is the same in every mine but oil is very different depending on where it is found. Some oil, like that found in the United States is sweet and light meaning it is low in sulfur and low in other contaminants like heavy metals. Oil that is imported from Mexico and Venezuela is heavy and sour meaning high in sulfur and other contaminants. US refineries have been set up to process heavy oil and it takes time and money to convert them over to processing light crude. This change is underway and will be accelerated in the coming years. That is one of the reasons why we are still importing about 8 million barrels per day or about 40% of the 20 million barrels per day that we use. There are 140 refineries in the United States and they are close to maximum production. No new refineries have been built in many years and there are a couple of reasons for this. First is the cost, especially concerning the many new regulations that have come about in the past few years. The second is that it is more economical to add capacity to existing refineries than to build new ones. Since 1975 it has been illegal for the US to export oil but that changed this week so we will see an increase in exports which means light crude is going overseas but this will not stop the refineries from changing over to light oil as they know that long term US oil will keep increasing.