How can we be under capacity if we are running the refineries at 82~86% capacity and still be making more product than we use?
That is over capacity, not under.
The latest month values are for Dec 2011.
We used 16,127,000 BPD.
http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_m.htm
We had operating refinery capacity of 16,980,000 BPD.
http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_a.htm
On top of that, we had 745,000 BPD operable, but idle.
Make sure you are not counting Natural Gas Liquids in your numbers. When they talk about total petroleum they count NGLs like propane, but most of that comes from Natural Gas Processing plants.
If you include the NGLs, then you need to include the NG Processing plants with the refineries.
Those numbers are not as up to date as refineries and they have grown significantly in the last couple years. It is cleaner to leave them out of the comparison, or you will have to use older data.
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