“The need is infrastructure,” he said. “You may produce all this light sweet crude oil in Texas. But if you don’t have pipelines to the nation’s refineries to deliver it, how are you going to be able to utilize it?”
So importing foreign crude oil is cheaper. Meanwhile, De Haan said, increasing renewable energy demand is making investments in fossil fuels riskier.
So we buy and refine the cheaper stuff, and we sell our more expensive stuff to places that can’t do that. There’s one more discount: The majority of our oil comes from our closest neighbor.
I've posted this in response to Trump's promise to "drill, baby, drill" as well as for all the people who have fuel prices as one of their primary concerns.
The reason gas prices are high is because it doesn't make fiscal sense for corporations to invest in the infrastructure to refine locally sourced crude oil. And, as it seems, refining local crude may actually increase prices at the pumps.
From everything I've read (please share anything that's contradictory), it seems like Trump's agenda is going to increase the cost of everything. For the number of people who voted based on 'the economy', I wish we had had more transparent discussions about the impact of his plans. I'm already scared for whomever has to inherit this pending catastrophe.
So... you didn't even read the first sentence.
Yes, the type of oil is certainly an important part of it and if people were more aware of this I think it would be helpful. But it's the combination of the type, the refining process, and trade that makes it more clear that "drill baby drill" is not the panacea Americans think it is.
Drilling for more oil is for the benefit of the oil producers, not for American wallets.