Fifteen years ago, just before the dawn of the Shale Era, more than 1.8 MMb/d of Gulf Coast and imported crude oil was being piped and barged north from PADD 3 to refineries in the Midwest. By 2019, those northbound flows had fallen by half, to less than 930 Mb/d, and in the first nine months of this year they averaged only 550 Mb/d. Refineries in PADD 2, many now equipped with cokers and other hardware that enables them to break down heavy, sour crude into valuable refined products, have replaced those barrels — and more — with piped- and railed-in imports of favorably priced crude from Western Canada, including a lot of dilbit and railbit from Alberta’s oil sands. Today, we discuss the evolution of feedstock supply to the Midwest refinery sector.
This is the third episode in our series on the changing face of U.S. crude oil imports in each of the five PADDs. In Part 1, we said that the Shale Revolution, combined with the development of the oil sands and other hydrocarbon resources in Western Canada, led to a dramatic decline in U.S. oil receipts from OPEC countries in particular and, to a lesser extent, from non-OPEC countries (other than Canada), and a big increase in imports from Canada. In 2005, the U.S. imported an average of 4.8 MMb/d from OPEC, 1.6 MMb/d from Canada, and 3.7 MMb/d from other non-OPEC countries, including 1.6 MMb/d from Mexico, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). By last year, imports from OPEC had decreased by almost 70%, to 1.5 MMb/d, while imports from Canada had increased by more than 135% to 3.8 MMb/d. Imports from other non-OPEC countries, in turn, had fallen by almost 60% to 1.5 MMb/d, and imports from Mexico — a subset of the non-OPEC countries — had plummeted by more than 60%, to about 600 Mb/d.
The trends generally continued in 2020, which like this year’s baseball, basketball, and football seasons will have an asterisk because of COVID-19 and its broad impacts. In the first nine months of this year, imports from OPEC averaged about 930 Mb/d, while imports from Canada averaged 3.6 MMb/d, and imports from other non-OPEC countries averaged 1.5 MMb/d — Mexico’s slice of that averaged about 690 Mb/d. There were also big shifts in imports on a PADD-by-PADD basis, as we discussed in Part 1.
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About the song
"America" was written by Neil Diamond, and appears as the first song on side one of the Neil Diamond movie soundtrack album, The Jazz Singer. The song, with its refrain of "they're comin’ to America," celebrates the dreams, promises, and freedom that living in America represents. The song was released as a single in April 1981, and went to #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. Personnel on the record were: Neil Diamond (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Richard Bennett (acoustic and electric guitars), Doug Rhone (acoustic guitar, backing vocals), Alan Lindgren (synthesizers, piano, orchestrations), Tom Hensley (keyboards, piano, orchestrations), Reinie Press (bass), Dennis St. John (drums), and Bob Gaudio (vocal arrangements).
The Jazz Singer is the soundtrack album to the 1980 remake of the landmark 1927 film of the same name. Featuring Neil Diamond, the Bob Gaudio-produced LP went to #3 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. It has been certified 5X Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Three singles were released from the album.
Neil Diamond is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has released 32 studio albums, two soundtrack albums, nine live albums, 43 compilation albums, and 55 singles. Diamond has had 10 #1 singles in the U.S., and has sold over 100 million records worldwide. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and holds a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Diamond announced his retirement from live performances in January 2018 due to Parkinson's disease. He lives with his wife, Katie McNeil, in Colorado.
