Germany is running out of refineries, and it now admits that’s a problem.
Economy Minister Katherina Reiche: “Whoever loses the refinery loses not only the supply for the gas station, but above all for the chemical complex.”
Berlin now says it wants to stop more refineries closing.
Look at the timing.
Shell stopped processing crude at its 140,000 b/d Wesseling refinery last year.
BP’s 250,000 b/d Gelsenkirchen has been up for sale since early 2025 with no buyer.
Scotland lost Grangemouth, 150,000 b/d.
Europe chose to import its diesel and jet fuel.
Now the imports are the problem.
Russian diesel exports hit a decade low.
Gulf fuel exports run at about half of normal.
US diesel costs about twice a barrel of crude.
On Friday Germany’s stockpiling agency EBV put out a tender to sell diesel, heating oil and crude from its strategic reserves.
In July it was still buying diesel to refill them.
Germany’s reserve was meant for an emergency. It’s now dipping into it as winter starts.
You can shut a refinery in a year.
Building one takes most of a decade.
Congratulations to Yankees legend Hideki Matsui on being named manager of the @TokyoGiants. Wishing you all the best in this new chapter! 👏
巨人軍の松井秀喜監督、ご就任おめでとうございます
Hideki Matsui, the two-time MLB All-Star and 2009 World Series MVP with the Yankees, has been introduced as the new manager of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants!
Washington is now paying to build refineries.
The DOE will spend up to $150m of Defense Production Act money to expand US refining and restart a closed refinery. It hasn’t said which one.
We’ve seen this playbook before, with minerals. Washington took 15% of $MP in 2025, 10% of Trilogy Metals, and a stake in Lithium Americas.
In January it reportedly took 10% of USA Rare Earth and the stock jumped as much as 62% premarket.
The difference this time is that $150m is a grant, not an equity stake and it’s small. It wouldn’t build a single new refinery.
Which names are exposed?
The restart candidates are plants that closed recently:
LyondellBasell’s Houston refinery (March 2025), Phillips 66’s Los Angeles plant (October 2025) and Valero’s Benicia, idle since April.
The expansion candidates are independents with room to add barrels. Delek’s 74,000 b/d Tyler refinery is already named and the rest of the small-cap group is PBF, Par Pacific, CVR Energy and HF Sinclair.
I’m watching which refinery DOE picks.
If it does take a stake, the minerals stocks showed what happens next.
⚠️🇺🇸Washington is now treating oil refining as defence.
Trump signed a memo declaring US petroleum production and refining essential to national defence.
It opens Defense Production Act money for oil projects, pipelines and fuel storage.
The problem is capacity.
US refineries are already running almost flat out: about 98% nationally in September, and 96% on the Gulf Coast in October.
The money is small.
Congress set aside $ 1bn of DPA funding for energy last year.
Kinder Morgan’s share of just two new gas pipelines is $ 4.7bn.
The first test case is Delek’s 74,000 b/d refinery in Tyler, Texas, though no expansion size has been given.
A proposed 168,000 b/d refinery in Brownsville, backed by India’s Reliance, could be next.
Refiners have told the White House a new refinery takes years to build.
This is a policy for the 2030 diesel market.
Voters go to the polls in 12 days and pay today’s prices.
Shipping a barrel of crude now costs about 10 times what it used to.
From 2010 to 2025, a VLCC moved oil for roughly $1–3 a barrel on most major routes.
Now:
-Arabian Gulf to Singapore: about $35
-West Africa to China: about $31
-Arabian Gulf to US: about $26
-Arabian Gulf to Japan: about $21
Not even 2020’s floating-storage spike came close.
It peaked under $10.
Hiring a VLCC from the US to Asia now costs about $77m per voyage, against a 2025 average of $9.2m.
Goldman puts the global average above $20 a barrel. $7 of that is the Hormuz war-risk premium and $4 is fuel.
This is why Gulf crude bound for Asia trades at a discount.
The freight eats the margin.
i explained here: https://t.co/DE0RsMwPBQ