Oil Refinery Throughputs per region: European throughputs have decrease due to over-capacity in the 1980s and 1990s, which led to a prolonged period of low margins. Meanwhile, Asia Pacific has grown as demand has increase through consumerism and increasing car usage. The US throughput also increased steadily as the larger refineries have expanded and small less efficient refineries have closed. The sharp reduction in throughput in the mid 1980s was cause by the oil price spike of the early 1980s - when prices crashed to 8$/barrle in 1986, refinery throughput increase as demand rose.