This countries largest export is GASOLINE!

For the third straight year the USA exported more gasoline than it has imported. It is currently our largest export, yes, LARGEST export! The US exported almost 2.6 million barrels of gasoline a day....  that's almost double the rate of 2008. So where did all this extra gasoline come from? And with all this extra supply, with the US's gas consumption falling for the third straight year shouldn't our prices be falling? And why aren't prices falling?

Well the surplus can be attributed to hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" (Google it, the explanation is to long to put down here) the efforts to boost the oil supply are finally paying off. Refineries have upgraded to produce more and it's also paying off in production. But prices remain high, why? It can be summed up in a single word. Infrastructure. Or lack thereof. You can have all the supply in the world, but if you have no way to move it the energy just sits. Our pipeline structure is just not capable of handling the supply, we have infrastructure bottlenecks. Only one pipeline currently moves oil from the mid west to refineries in the northeast.  So on the tanker it goes to markets where gasoline sells for higher profits anyway. Other countries that have actual growing economies need fuel to feed them, since ours doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast, our consumption is going down while theirs goes up. China and Brazil's consumption has more than tripled in the last few years. Our companies are using the new found production cost advantages (fracking) over foreign operators downstream  to export record amounts of gasoline to other countries. So I guess a glutted supply with the world economy doesn't translate to lower prices here. Its a shame, it is of my opinion that our economy is stagnated in a large part due to high fuel prices. Despite American oil companies making astronomical and yes world record setting profits, instead of pumping some of that money into our country and helping improve the infrastructure and the economy and making future profits they choose to export. To quote someone whose name I don't remember "It is what it is"