Crude oil grades decline since 2011 across the refinery inputs in the United States according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
- The change in domestic production and imports reduced the mix of crude oil grades (or the crude slates) across the East Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast region;
- Production of increasingly lighter crude oil in the United States has contributed to the overall lightening of the crude oil slate for U.S. refiners;
- The fastest-growing category of domestic production has been crude oil with an API gravity greater than 40 degrees;
- Light crude oil production in the Lower 48 states has grown from an annual average of 4.6 million barrels per day to 6.4 million barrels per day in the first seven months of 2019.
