Charles R. Goulding and Preeti Sulibhavi discuss how 3D printing can help America’s refineries navigate supply chain disruptions, accelerate maintenance, and turn domestic manufacturing into a competitive advantage.
During the second quarter of 2026, Shell reported operating its refining network at an extraordinary 102% utilization, the highest level in the company’s history. The company achieved the milestone by minimizing downtime, improving reliability, and squeezing additional production from existing assets. Meanwhile, U.S. refinery utilization has hovered around 97%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, leaving little slack across the country’s refining infrastructure.
Those numbers tell an important story. Every hour a refinery is offline represents lost production and lost revenue. As facilities push equipment beyond traditional operating levels, wear accelerates. Pumps, valves, impellers, heat exchanger components, instrumentation mounts, pipe supports, compressor parts, and countless other pieces experience increased stress. Maintenance cycles become more demanding, and sourcing replacement parts becomes increasingly critical.
This is precisely where additive manufacturing can make a significant difference.
Refineries Depend on Thousands of Specialized Parts
A modern refinery is one of the most complex industrial facilities in existence. Millions of individual components work together under high temperatures, high pressures, corrosive chemicals, and continuous operation.
Many of these components are highly specialized. Some were designed decades ago by manufacturers that no longer exist. Others have lead times measured in months because they require custom machining or casting.
When a critical component fails, operators face difficult choices. They can wait for a replacement to arrive, machine a replacement locally if drawings exist, or maintain a large inventory of expensive spare parts that may never be used.
None of these options is ideal.
This is why digital manufacturing has attracted growing attention throughout the energy sector.
Additive Manufacturing Changes the Spare Parts Equation
Rather than storing shelves full of rarely used components, refineries can increasingly maintain digital inventories. When a part is needed, it can be produced using additive manufacturing either on-site or through qualified regional suppliers.
This approach offers several advantages.
First, it dramatically reduces inventory costs. Instead of purchasing and storing hundreds or thousands of spare parts, companies only manufacture what they actually need.
Second, it shortens lead times. Components that might otherwise require weeks or months can often be produced in days, assuming qualified designs and printing processes are already available.
Third, additive manufacturing enables redesign. Engineers are not limited to reproducing an existing part. They can improve internal flow paths, reduce weight, consolidate multiple components into a single part, or improve corrosion resistance by selecting different materials.
These advantages become especially valuable when refineries are operating near full capacity.
More Running Time Means More Maintenance
Running a refinery at 102% utilization is an impressive engineering achievement, but it also increases the importance of maintenance planning.
Equipment that spends more hours operating naturally accumulates more fatigue. High-temperature components experience additional thermal cycling. Rotating equipment requires closer monitoring. Corrosion continues its relentless work inside piping systems and process vessels.
Maintenance teams already work under intense pressure to minimize outages.
A replacement valve body that normally requires twelve weeks to source may become the critical path that delays restarting an entire processing unit. Even relatively inexpensive components can determine whether production resumes on schedule.
If qualified additive manufacturing can reduce that delay from months to days, the economic value quickly becomes apparent.
The cost of a printed component is often insignificant compared to the revenue generated by returning a refinery unit to service sooner.
Metal 3D Printing Is Ready for Industrial Applications
Industrial metal additive manufacturing has matured considerably over the past decade.
Processes such as laser powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition, and binder jetting now produce parts from stainless steels, nickel superalloys, cobalt chrome, titanium alloys, and other engineering materials commonly used throughout refineries.
These technologies have already demonstrated success in producing:
- Pump impellers
- Burner components
- Heat exchanger elements
- Valve trim
- Compressor components
- Custom tooling
- Inspection fixtures
- Replacement brackets and supports
Not every refinery component is a candidate for additive manufacturing. Safety-critical pressure-containing parts require rigorous qualification and certification. Industry standards continue to evolve for these applications.
However, the list of suitable components continues to grow each year as material properties become better understood and qualification pathways mature.
One shining example of the AM shift is Lincoln Electric. We previously covered Lincoln Electric shifting gears to focus on repair and remanufacturing on Fabbaloo earlier this year. At the February 2026 AM Strategies Conference in New York City, Lincoln Electric stood out in a way that felt both understated and unmistakable. While many companies filled the exhibit hall with forward-looking messaging, Lincoln brought something different: proof. In fact, one of the most impactful examples involved infrastructure components for refineries, where Lincoln has used large-scale metal 3D printing to produce replacement parts for aging systems.
Supply Chains Are Becoming a Strategic Concern
The business case for refinery 3D printing extends beyond maintenance costs.
Recent geopolitical tensions have highlighted the vulnerability of global industrial supply chains. Continued instability affecting shipping through both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea has created uncertainty for manufacturers that rely on international logistics.
Even when finished components are available, transportation delays can extend delivery schedules. Customs processing, shipping disruptions, and limited freight capacity all contribute to longer lead times.
For refineries operating at exceptionally high utilization, waiting weeks for a replacement component may not be acceptable.
Digital inventories and domestic additive manufacturing provide an alternative model.
Instead of transporting finished parts halfway around the world, companies can securely transmit qualified design files to certified production facilities located much closer to the refinery itself. The result is a shorter, more resilient supply chain that depends less on international shipping routes.
At the end of July, the Trump administration was looking to reopen closed oil refineries, including an embattled one in the Virgin Islands, amid high gasoline prices spurred by the Iran war. The St. Croix refinery in question shut down indefinitely in 2021. That came after the Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to shut down for 60 days, saying its oil releases and air pollution posed an “imminent risk to public health.” As we have seen with projects to reopen previously closed nuclear plants, there is always a lot more renovation and repair required than originally estimated. The strategic use of AM to repair and upgrade this refinery could improve outcomes here.
Building a More Resilient Energy Infrastructure
The energy industry has traditionally adopted new manufacturing technologies cautiously, and for good reason. Reliability and safety are paramount.
But additive manufacturing is no longer an experimental technology.
The nuclear industry has begun qualifying printed parts. Oil and gas companies have already deployed additive manufacturing for selected maintenance applications, tooling, and replacement components.
As qualification standards continue to mature, refinery operators will have an expanding portfolio of applications where additive manufacturing makes technical and economic sense.
The combination of digital inventories, localized production, and faster maintenance cycles offers a compelling value proposition for facilities expected to operate near maximum capacity for extended periods.
3D Printing Developments and IRC §41 Research and Development (R&D) Credit Opportunities
The 3D printing developments described can create practical opportunities for companies, especially refineries and industrial manufacturers – to support IRC §41 R&D credit claims when the work goes beyond simply reproducing an existing part. Under IRC §41, qualified research generally must involve technological work aimed at developing a new or improved business component, such as a product, process, technique, or invention, and substantially all the activities must involve a process of experimentation related to function, performance, reliability, or quality.
The article highlights digital inventories and on-demand additive manufacturing, where companies store qualified design files and produce parts on-site or through certified regional suppliers when needed. If engineers are evaluating how to print a part so it performs safely in a refinery environment, those activities may involve technological uncertainty—such as whether a particular print process, geometry, or material will meet operational requirements.
Importantly, additive manufacturing allows engineers to do more than copy an old component. They may improve internal flow paths, reduce weight, consolidate multiple parts into one, or select different materials to improve corrosion resistance. Those efforts can align well with IRC §41’s focus on improved function, performance, reliability, or quality. For example, developing a redesigned pump impeller, burner component, heat exchanger element, valve trim, compressor component, custom tooling, inspection fixture, bracket, or support may qualify when the company models alternatives, prints prototypes or test articles, evaluates results, and refines the design.
Additionally, mature industrial metal 3D printing processes like laser powder bed fusion, directed energy deposition, and binder jetting, and use materials such as stainless steels, nickel superalloys, cobalt chrome, and titanium alloys. Choosing among these options and testing them under real performance requirements can show a process of experimentation, which generally involves identifying uncertainty, considering alternatives, and evaluating them through modeling, simulation, or systematic trial and error.
The strongest credit positions will document the technical problem, alternatives considered, test results, design iterations, and qualification or certification work—particularly for safety-critical refinery parts requiring rigorous testing. R&D Tax Savers has been helping companies claim R&D tax credits since the credit’s introduction into the Internal Revenue Code in 1981.
An Opportunity Worth Seizing
Shell’s record 102% refinery utilization demonstrates just how efficiently modern facilities can operate. At the same time, U.S. refineries running near 97% utilization leave little margin for unexpected maintenance delays.
Keeping these facilities operating requires more than skilled maintenance crews. It requires faster, smarter ways to source the parts that keep equipment running safely and reliably.
Additive manufacturing is uniquely positioned to meet that challenge. It can reduce inventory costs, shorten lead times, improve part performance, and strengthen supply chain resilience at a time when global logistics face increasing uncertainty.
As geopolitical tensions continue to reshape industrial supply chains, domestic manufacturing deserves renewed attention. Producing qualified refinery components closer to where they are needed is not simply a matter of convenience. It is a strategy for improving operational resilience while supporting local industry.
In the years ahead, domestic production may prove to be both an economic strategy and a national security strategy. By enabling faster, more flexible manufacturing of critical industrial components, 3D printing can help keep America’s refineries operating efficiently, strengthen supply chains, and, quite literally, help keep the pipeline flowing.
