Surging fuel production will leave refiners well placed in 2019 to meet both domestic and external demand
Major trends in new US refining capacity are adhering to Tier 3 (clean fuel) regulations, processing the wave of lighter crudes produced by US shale plays (including the construction of grassroots processing facilities and debottlenecking projects), and increasing octane-boosting production capacity (e.g., alkylation and isomerisation). In total, the US is forecast to add between 540,000 bl/d and 600,000 bl/d of new distillation capacity, and more than 300,000 bl/d of secondary unit capacity by the early 2020s.
