Posted on 08/30/2005 2:16:09 PM PDT by FreedomWatcher
I have a business relationship with a company that sells fuel to farmers. I spoke today with a person from that company who said that they were trying to buy more unleaded fuel from their source and could not. Their source told them they were out of fuel and were not expecting to have more anytime soon, due to hurricane.
I have not stated where this is because I would prefer not to be the one to start a panic. However, it is a "MidSouth" state.
Until hard numbers come out, it's all meaningless hearsay.
I wouldn't quite say the "shortages" are coming of the 70's like. It is very likely that the refineries in the Hurricane region will be out of commision for some time, however, the shortage can be compensated for by importing the refined products from EU. Of course, there will be the inevitable price increast. The only question is how long will the refineries remain down.
I would say it is not very smart to have 90% of our refining capacity in the storm prone gulf states. From a strategic standpoint it would make a lot of sense to build more refineries in more geographically diverse locations.
I have heard reports of stations being out of unleaded here in Phoenix... they are telling everybody not to go top off or panic, because at least 80% our fuel comes from california, but I also know it was a pipeline from texas that broke a couple summers ago that caused all our problems back then... I needed gas today and filled both tanks in my truck (30 gallons), So I am good for two more weeks.
There is no source other than rumor for this "story"!
Problem is that refineries need to be close to the unloading facilities (or, we spring for multi-billion pipeline projects). The big deal is that world's 4th largest port is Southern Louisiana Port, with adjoining LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port). A real big chunk of imports go through there. And then, ton of our agricultural exports come out of that port. If the port remains closed for some time, especially during harvest time, this will have global reprecussions.
Bush's fault......
There's only a shortage because the oil companies and the msm want there to be a shortage.
The media wants a fuel shortage?
I topped off with 5 gallons in my Prius, and I'm good for a couple of weeks myself.....
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