Base oil production in the United States rose 12% in June, year on year, as this year’s output continued to run ahead of 2023.
Base oil exports from the U.S. jumped 23% during the same month, while imports climbed 8%,
Refiners in the country churned out 4.7 million barrels of mineral base oils in June, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, up from 4.2 million barrels in the same month of 2023.
The U.S. industry started out the year with its strongest performance since before the COVID-19 pandemic but has eased up the past three months. For the first half of the year output totaled 29.2 million barrels, ahead of the 26.7 million barrels produced in the same period of last year, but behind 2022’s 30.1 million barrels. The first half of 2021 also yielded 29.2 million barrels, while output for the same period of 2020 cratered to 25.9 million barrels.
Production for this June broke down to 4.1 million barrels of paraffinic base oils and 616,000 barrels of naphthenic oils. The paraffinic number represented a 15% increase year to year, while naphthenic production was down 8%.
The U.S., which is one of the world’s largest base oil exporters, exported 4 million barrels of base oil in June, up from 3.3 million for the same month last year and the second-highest monthly total this year, behind 4.8 million barrels in March. Imports climbed to 1.5 million barrels, up from 1.4 million barrels 12 months earlier.