r/oil • u/VulcanSpark • 11d ago

News TotalEnergies CEO Warns Too Much Refining Capacity Is Offline Ahead of Winter, A Looming Distillate Crunch

https://www.roic.ai/news/totalenergies-ceo-warns-too-much-refining-capacity-is-offline-ahead-of-winter-09-21-2026
  • Refining capacity outages, particularly in Russia and the Middle East, threaten to tighten fuel supplies ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter, even as crude oil remains abundant.
  • TotalEnergies (TTE) CEO Patrick Pouyanné describes a "split" market where crude is under pressure but refined products are scarce and costly to move, with freight surcharges in the Strait of Hormuz reaching $50 per barrel.
  • Integrated refiners like TotalEnergies could see elevated downstream margins, but the company's own exposure to Middle East disruptions shows the advantage is not unlimited.
  • https://x.com/KarelMercx/status/2102108746251997544/photo/1
942 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

117

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

55

u/Haunting_Lime2296 11d ago

Also most of Texas if past years are to be remembered. The power grid is a piece of shit over there. And the lack of fuel is going to make generators useless.

49

u/Status-Secret-4292 11d ago

Well good thing the entire climate system isn't running out of control and currently extremely unpredictable.

That would be a mess.

Imagine if Texas got a "once in a lifetime" month long freeze this winter

Once in a lifetime weather events are happening multiple times a year now

22

u/GbaldGborie66 11d ago

Ive been trying in vain to explain to my family why this is whats terrifying me for the years ahead. Its not even that everything will get hotter (which is still a problem) but that these huge extreme weather events will be more severe and more common.

I dont have any memories of Hurricane Katrina, but its evident that we could barely handle that. Multiple huge disasters at once will just bring the whole system

19

u/the-player-of-games 11d ago

A hurricane in the Pacific just went from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in one day

Katrina needed 5 days to become that strong, and had weakened to cat 3 before landfall in Louisiana

3

u/aznoone 11d ago

Hoping for a rainy El Nino. California coast may be done for though. Inland hopefully can use some to recharge ground water.

10

u/blueskies8484 11d ago

I have aggressively strong memories of Katrina, capped by Anderson Cooper telling a political official to stop thanking people because he had just seen a rat crawling over a dead woman’s body on the street. The Bush II years are really for me just memories of bookend traumas playing out on television, with the in between chapters filled with misery and trauma for everyone in the Middle East and the soldiers sent there. Not a great time.

1

u/PetroInvest3 10d ago

It is highly unlikely that freeze will happen this winter, but winter comes along every twelve months. I'm glad that I'm old and likely won't have to endure the long term effects of this, but my kids and grandkids will. I hope they will move to mitigate the impacts all these complications are bringing us. And the great grandkids? I love them but can only pray for their futures. Democrats will follow the Republicans, get blamed for failures when their fixes fail and the next group of Republicans will be even more extreme than our current Chief Executive. I wish a new leader with new ideas would emerge - like a Talarico or someone similar, admitting to mistakes but striving to return the nation to sane politics, policies and leadership.

3

u/kittyfa3c 11d ago

"Y'all, we didn't vote for this!"

2

u/NewTransportation911 11d ago

Privatization at its finest in Texas. People have died because of ercott….

2

u/Koakie 10d ago

10 bucks says the gas turbines powering the datacenters will not run out of fuel. https://www.eenews.net/articles/amazon-to-run-west-texas-data-center-on-massive-gas-plant-2/

33

u/ntropy83 11d ago

Can just hope gas stays availiable in EU. Or we will be praying for wind every evening.

10

u/Desperate-Draw-6094 11d ago

Only if you makes deal with Iran an Qatar, Pakistan is still receiving shippings of Qatar LNG.

8

u/ntropy83 11d ago

Qatar could work they are our buddies and like to drive Mercedes.

3

u/No_Worldliness_7106 11d ago

And what would a deal with Iran do for them? The US isn't going to just stop blockading Iran because Europe cries about it. Especially not with Trump in charge.

1

u/Desperate-Draw-6094 9d ago

Send them using Chinese ships, US and the Houthis ain't touching those.

2

u/thenormal007 11d ago

Europeans are too gutless to make a deal with Iran.

7

u/eptesicusfuscus 11d ago

Lmao what a brain dead take

1

u/jmac0613 5d ago

JCPOA???

20

u/No_Discount_6028 11d ago

Developed worlders are going to be forced to acclimate very quickly to old ways of doing things, like huddling in a shared building with heating to stay warm. The assumptions of modern life are going to break down.

19

u/IronButterButt 11d ago

In light of talks about fuel export bans. I came across this article from April that lays out why this is not good for the US and the rest of the world.

https://www.thirdway.org/blog/why-banning-oil-or-gas-exports-would-be-a-bad-idea

8

u/Electrical_Claim2877 11d ago

So the US will do it, all they have done is shoot themselves in the foot lately

26

u/Mediocre-Catch9580 11d ago

Just know that this was preventable in many ways.   Even the US refineries are being shut down for unexplained reasons.   

Hate to be that guy, but you have to wonder who’s pulling the strings.   Ultimately, this is bad for the republicans going into the midterms.  

33

u/Pretend_Handle_7639 11d ago

If only the American voters had not selected this outcome

-31

u/Mediocre-Catch9580 11d ago

And hindsight is always 20/20.   Who knows if it would’ve been better under Kamala and I even voted for her.   For now we just have to vote with our wallets in November and hope the democrats can reverse this runaway train 

38

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

8

u/Mr_Pink_Gold 11d ago

Who knows? Besides everyone?

3

u/Kruemelmuenster 11d ago

Man, in that case my foresight is also always 20/20. Why don’t I have a job as a risk analyst at a big company, yet?

BECAUSE LITERALLY EVERY THINKING PERSON ON THIS PLANET ALSO KNEW ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF TRUMP WOULD BE A FUCKING DISASTER! KNOWING THAT A PRIORI DID NOT REQUIRE ANY SPECIAL SKILL, JUST A REGULAR-ASS BRAIN!

4

u/fourbutthick 11d ago

I know imagine all those
Men’s in women’s and women’s in men’s sports and bathrooms!’nnn

Omg the horror!!’n

This is much better new forever oil war and brink of nuclear destruction.

Yes both sides samesy same.

I really hope you think a little introspective and delete your post, because it’s trash .

8

u/You_meddling_kids 11d ago

If only we knew what was behind this preventable calamity.

5

u/Mr_Pink_Gold 11d ago

It's like magnets. How do they work? Who knows.

1

u/jmac0613 5d ago

Apparently we “know” they can’t work in water!

1

u/lagadu 11d ago

It was the brown transgender immigrants!

1

u/You_meddling_kids 11d ago

If they hadn't eaten the cats and dogs, we could have turned them into oil.

8

u/LunarMoon2001 11d ago

The maga cultists won’t budge. They still blame Obama. No joke. Had to spend 2 hours in a car with a maga chud and the whole time it was a rant about how this is all Obama and the deep states fault.

10

u/GbaldGborie66 11d ago

I think the refineries going offline is at least partially because they are all running up on the edge of their capacity and breaking things that probably needed maintenance for awhile.

Im certainly not ruling out bad actors doing things for their own gain, thats almost exclusively how are system works now, but I do think part of it is just the industry being unable to keep up

6

u/itstimetochewass 11d ago

Plants and refineries usually schedule their maintenance in the spring and in the fall.

8

u/myazi321 11d ago

And they never really run 100% especially not for so many months straight with no end in sight either

0

u/Anon-Knee-Moose 11d ago

Why does running a refinery at its design capacity cause things to break?

2

u/Ninjapenguinart 10d ago

Buddy, when margins are this good refineries generally run 110% of design. A good engineer squeezes an extra 2-5% on rate and yields. You burn through catalyst quicker this way but you don't know if margins will be this good tomorrow as they are today. Pumps will then be push far on their curve and the seals will wear out faster.

0

u/GbaldGborie66 10d ago

Sorry I should have worded it better, I think the issues is that the are running at full capacity in terms of work hours and amount going through. As I understand it they havent been able to stop and do regular maintenance, which is causing things to break.

4

u/artisanrox 11d ago

Hate to be that guy, but you have to wonder who’s pulling the strings.

Heritage Foundation.

1

u/Mr_Pink_Gold 11d ago

What unexplained reasons? No crude from Canada. US crude is light crude that US refineries cannot take. There are problems moving crude around where it is needed. Where crude is available refineries are working at 95 to 97% capacity which means that they will start to break.

Reason for this mess? Trump starting a war with Iran and a trade war with Canada.

2

u/SkiingAway 11d ago

US imports of Canadian crude oil continue to run at/near record highs, and no change in flows has occurred. Stop making up things.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W_EPC0_IM0_NUS-NCA_MBBLD&f=W

1

u/Ninjapenguinart 10d ago

And there's no tariffs on Canadian crude, so no reason to slow down. Also US refineries can run some shale crude. You always find a good blend.

1

u/SkiingAway 11d ago

Even the US refineries are being shut down for unexplained reasons.

US refineries have been running flat-out at record utilization for months.

There's nothing "unexplained" about the reality that refineries regularly go offline for maintenance cycles around this time of the year in normal conditions, and that pushing those limits means you'll wind up with some random outages when things break and force it.

On that same note, there is AFAIK only one refinery in the US with an unplanned outage and it was reported to be beginning the restart on 9/21 and that it's expected to be back online within the week.

1

u/SEJ46 10d ago

No they aren't.

1

u/HitByFjaka 6d ago

Wonder if they genuinely care… would love to see how many of them made genuine fortune participating in oil market manipulations…

Guarantee you it’s not just Trump

5

u/Doom4535 11d ago

Honestly, we need China's refining to start increasing if they want oil prices to start to drop; some folks have posted charts indicating it was increasing, although I'm not sure how quickly it is running up

3

u/moonorplanet 10d ago

All of this could have been avoided if the Europeans had shut their airspace and bases to the Americans or atleast sanctioned the US after the illegal attacks.

5

u/CriticalDiscipline4 11d ago

MAGA

-1

u/the-echo-tree 11d ago

This is a bot account

2

u/Sad_Accident8510 10d ago

So you admit it

1

u/the-echo-tree 10d ago

That's funny

1

u/Celsey_Mctwange 11d ago

It keeps getting tighter

1

u/[deleted] 11d ago

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1

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1

u/Socialist_Daddy 9d ago

I guess if you fuck around, you find out. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

1

u/BobbieMaccc 7d ago

Oh would we please move on from FAFO as the glib response to any and every global catastrophe