White House weighs Defense Production Act as U.S. refineries run at 98% capacity
AI Market Summary
With U.S. refineries running at ~98% utilization and global refining outages constraining diesel supply, product markets are tightening sharply, underscored by diesel prices breaking $6/gal and inventories 13% below the five-year average. The White House's consideration of Defense Production Act support signals policy urgency, but additional capacity would likely arrive slowly, keeping near-term margins and crude-throughput demand sensitive to disruption risk.
Impact level
● High
Affected assets
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AI Insight · NCCO1OILWTI2USD/USDTAI Insight
▲ Bullish
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The White House is weighing the use of the Defense Production Act to boost U.S. refining capacity as domestic refineries run at 98% utilization and diesel tops $6 per gallon for the first time. Refinery utilization stayed above 95% for three straight months through late August, the longest stretch since 2000. The market has tightened after about 7 million bpd of capacity went offline in Asia and the Middle East and another 1.4 million bpd became unavailable in Russia, according to Phillips 66. U.S. diesel inventories are now 13% below their fiveyear average.
