Most of the new supply will come in the form of light sweet and ultra-light oil. But because refineries along the Gulf Coast are largely equipped to handle medium and heavy crude, the new production probably won’t find a home inside the U.S. A new study from Wood Mackenzie predicts that only about 900,000 bpd of the additional supply will be taken up in the domestic market, leaving more than 3 mb/d for export should those aggressive production forecasts play out. Meanwhile, Bernstein Research was even more definitive, arguing that essentially all new additional supply will be shipped abroad. Ultimately, the IEA forecasts that U.S. crude export capacity could hit nearly 5 mb/d by 2023. WoodMac estimates that initially a lot of the exported crude will head to Europe, where refining values are high. However, U.S. oil will have to compete with crude coming from West Africa. Once the […]