Clogged oil routes slow record output for US shale

Guernsey, Wyoming

A GALLON of gasoline that allows a driver on the US East Coast to travel about 40 kilometres has already navigated thousands of kilometres from an oil field to one of the world's largest fuel markets.

If its last stop is one of the region's struggling refineries - an increasingly unlikely prospect - the crude used to produce the gas would have probably arrived by tanker from West Africa. That's because the region's five plants have no pipeline access to US shale fields or Canada's oil sands.