U.S. Refiners Are Making A Comeback

The pandemic very likely hit the downstream oil even more severely than exploration and production and led to longer suffering. But now, things are finally beginning to look up for U.S. refiners as people take to the roads while oil prices retreat from multi-year highs reached earlier this year. In late July, Reuters reported that refiners were about to report their first profitable quarter in a year as demand for fuels recovered almost to pre-pandemic levels in the world's largest consumer of oil.

At the time, the top three refiners in the country—Valero,…