More investment needed at US refineries: report

Houston

US REFINERIES have done almost everything they can to cheaply process the light oil flowing out of domestic shale formations and will need to make bigger investments to continue raising capacity, a report has shown.

Refiners have modified units and are blending crudes to handle the influx of light oil supply from shale plays such as the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report on Monday. With low-cost investments exhausted, they'll have to rely on costlier splitters and new unit installations if they want to run even more shale oil, the report showed.