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Home – Oil & Energy News – A Diesel Export Ban Won’t Solve Our Fuel Crisis

A Diesel Export Ban Won’t Solve Our Fuel Crisis

EJ Antoni | Sarah Wagoner

Politicians on both sides of the aisle claim there’s a quick fix to stratospheric diesel prices: an export ban. It seems intuitive that if diesel can’t leave the country, there’s more available for domestic consumption and prices here will fall. Unfortunately, the oil market is not that simple, and a ban would do more harm than good. 

The U.S. isn’t short on diesel but is a major global exporter, producing 5.3 million barrels of distillates a day, only about 3.5 million of which are sold domestically. Today’s high prices reflect a global shortage caused by domestic refinery closures and foreign conflicts. In addition to shortages from the Iran war, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have knocked out a large portion of global diesel production. 

Removing American production from the global market would have little positive impact at home but would risk shortages abroad, hamper global supply chains, and drive up prices paid by Americans for countless imported products. It would also endanger the imported oil supplies on which the U.S. depends. 

Much of the crude oil pumped in America isn’t refined here but is exported and refined elsewhere. Meanwhile, the U.S. import millions of barrels per day because most American refineries are optimized to handle types of crude oil that are different from what’s primarily pumped domestically. 

In short, we import oil, refine it, and then sell the products—including diesel—back to foreigners. But if we refuse to sell them the very product of the crude oil they sold us, they lose the primary incentive to sell us their crude in the first place. If other nations stopped exporting crude to America, domestic refineries would run short on oil and diesel supplies would plummet. 

Geography is also a major problem. Most........

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