Just seven U.S. oil refineries out of the 18 that were down due to the Texas Freeze are operating normally as of Monday, according to Bloomberg. Those 18 refineries that were down accounted for as much as 5.5 million barrels of crude processing capacity per day. As a result of the Texas Freeze, according to Energy Information Administration data, weekly U.S. percent utilization of refinery operable capacity dipped to 56% during the week ending February 26—the lowest operable utilization of operable capacity since the EIA began tracking the data in November 1990. And while crude oil inventories had finally fallen to the five-year average before the Freeze, the refinery outages stopped the inventory drawdowns in their tracks, and crude oil stocks ballooned by 22 million barrels last week, according to the EIA. But all signs point to this utilization increasing—and crude stocks decreasing. The largest refinery in the United […]