According to data recently released by the Energy Information Administration, the base oil production in the United States fell by 9% in 2019. The total output of lube base oil fell from 67.3 million barrels in 2018 to 60.9 million barrels in 2019.

In the past few years, the global base oil production capacity has increased significantly, and the overcapacity is still increasing, so that profit margins continue to be compressed, prompting some refineries to transfer base oil raw material vacuum gas oil to other uses, such as the production of marine fuels and Diesel. Industry insiders said that this may be part of the reason for the decline in base oil production in the United States in 2019.

　　 Prices and profits are challenged, resulting in production adjustments, and more raw materials are transferred to the VGO market for the production of marine fuel or other diesel products. In the second half of 2019, some refineries underwent major maintenance. US base oil shipments to Central and South America fell from 7.3 million barrels in 2018 to 6.6 million barrels in 2019, a decrease of nearly 10%. This may be related to political turmoil in several Latin American countries last year and high inflation in the region. Argentina has an inflation rate of 54% in 2019, and imported only 370,000 barrels of US base oil last year, down from 788,000 barrels in 2018. Ecuador's imports of base oil from the United States plummeted from 1.2 million barrels in 2018 to 668,000 barrels last year.