Petroleum products

U.S. refinery inputs, capacity, and utilization
We forecast U.S. refinery capacity will be lower in 2026 than in 2025 because of planned closures at two refineries: Phillips 66’s 139,000-barrel per day (b/d) Wilmington refinery in the Los Angeles area later this year; and Valero’s 145,000 b/d Benicia refinery in the Bay area in early 2026. With less refinery capacity, crude oil inputs to refineries will also decrease. However, we expect the decrease in refinery inputs to be smaller than the decrease in refinery capacity as low product inventories support strong refinery margins that incentivize the remaining refineries to run at higher rates. As a result, we forecast refinery utilization will average 91.4% in 2026, up from 91.1% in 2025 and the highest annual average utilization since 2022. Our forecast was finalized before the fire at Chevron’s 285,000-b/d El Segundo refinery outside Los Angeles significantly disrupted the flow of petroleum products from the facility.

U.S. net imports of crude oil and petroleum products
With less capacity to refine petroleum products domestically, we expect the United States will import less crude oil but import more petroleum products in 2026, as shown in our net import forecasts. Net imports are defined as total imports minus total exports.

Our forecast for refinery inputs decreases more than our forecast for crude oil production in 2026, resulting in crude oil inventory builds. With rising inventories, we forecast the United States will reduce net imports of crude oil to less than 1.9 million b/d in 2026 compared with 2.1 million b/d this year, the lowest annual average crude oil net imports in a year since 1971.

Lower U.S. refinery inputs in 2026 also reduce our forecast for domestic production of petroleum products. At the same time, we expect the United States will consume about the same amount of petroleum products in 2026 as in 2025. As a result, we expect the United States—particularly the West Coast—will need to import more petroleum products to meet market demand. We forecast total net imports of petroleum products, not including biofuels and hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs), will increase to 1.5 million b/d in 2026, up 0.3 million b/d from 2025 and 0.4 million b/d from 2024.

Although we do not forecast net imports by region, we expect the increase in net imports to be concentrated on the West Coast (PADD 5), where the refinery closures will occur. Because the most consumed petroleum products on the West Coast are motor gasoline and jet fuel, we forecast U.S. net import growth to be more concentrated in those fuels. Distillate fuel oil comprises a smaller portion of total petroleum product consumption on the West Coast because of increased adoption of renewable diesel, particularly in California. In 2024, renewable diesel and biodiesel comprised more than one-third of total distillate consumption on the West Coast. We forecast renewable diesel production to increase in 2026, likely reducing the effects of lower refinery capacity on distillate fuel oil net imports.

Unlike the petroleum products discussed in this section, we expect net imports of HGLs to continue to decrease in 2026 as HGL exports continue to rise. We also forecast biofuel net imports to decrease because of higher renewable diesel exports.