Posted on 07/22/2007 9:30:14 AM PDT by neverdem
Oil refineries across the country have been plagued by a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens of them to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping to drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer’s records.
These mechanical breakdowns, which one analyst likened to an “invisible hurricane,” have created a bottleneck in domestic energy supplies, helping to push up gasoline prices 50 cents this year to well above $3 a gallon. A third of the country’s 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record according to analysts.
There have been blazes at refineries in Louisiana, Texas, Indiana and California, some of them caused by lightning strikes. Plants have suffered power losses that disrupted operations; a midsize refinery in Kansas was flooded by torrential rains last month.
American refiners are running roughly 5 percent below their normal levels at this time of the year.
“You have a system that is taxed to the limit,” said Adam Robinson, an energy research analyst at Lehman Brothers. “This is what happens when spare capacity is eroded.”
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the nation’s energy lifeline two years ago, oil companies delayed maintenance on many of their plants to make up for lost supplies and take advantage of the high prices. But, analysts say, they are now paying a price for deferring repairs.
As a whole, refining disruptions have been considerably higher than in previous years: they averaged 1.5 million barrels a day in the first quarter, compared with 700,000 to 900,000 barrels a day from 2001 to 2005. In the days after the hurricanes, refiners were forced to briefly halt as many as five million barrels of production.
In 2006, when refiners...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You can spit on an oil refinery and make the price of gas go up.
Thanks to the environazis. They have unwittingly fallen into the trap of capitalistic supply and demand by blocking new refinery construction. Now they yell for their DemoRat buddies to tax oil companies for windfall profits because they have created a supply and demand speculative market.
Wish I owned some oil stock 10 years ago. I too could profit.
Uh, don’t these refineries also make Diesel along with the gaoline? Why is the price of diesel not bouncing all around like that of gaoline? (Doesn’t make any real difference to me as my tactical reserve was filled before Memorial Day and is big enough to last until after Labor Day).
Refineries were never designed to operate at 95%+ capacity ALL THE TIME, many are old, and the cost advantages of upgrading are outweighed by the bad press and Enviro lawsuit costs.
If the Sheeple knew just how much REFINED GAS we import, they would DEMAND new refineries. But that doesn’t fit into the MSMS’s pre-chosen Action Line...
Here's another figure for you. Over 100 refineries have been closed in the last 30 years as well.
I was wondering why here in California I’m getting regular unleaded at US$2.89 per gallon. That’s positively cheap compared to the rest of the country.
Several years ago when the price for a gallon was pushing $2 there was a hue and cry from the media ... then when it hit that 'ceiling' and went beyond it turns out that World didn't end .... after Katrina knocked out a refinery or two in the Gulf, the price hit an 'all time high' of $3.50 (around NYC anyway), and the World still didn't end.
So this is all just a bunch of bluster and panic from a compliant media with a political agenda .... nothing to see here, folks, move along ......
Nothing unwitting about it. They know exactly what they're doing. Just ask Hugo.
$2.95/gal is fairly common for the last few days in Detroit N. suburbs, off the major thoroughfares....
Where are you finding $3.10 in NYC?
NYC area, meaning the suburbs of LI .... HESS specifically
BTW, this is also why gasoline prices spike in May every year nowadays . . . because that's the time of year when summer ethanol-based blends are required in many metropolitan areas, and the supply of ethanol (and the changes in the refining process for these fuels are done) becomes a major factor.
. . . just in case anyone was wondering why gasoline was more expensive in May than it is now, even though oil is about 15%-20% more expensive now.
Not only have the greenies prevented any new refinery construction for over thirty years now, but their regulations and lawsuits have had the effect of deferring modernizations and major overhauls as well.
No wonder they’re breaking down and blowing up.
I honed in on that one.
I'll go back now and read the rest of the article.
You may say, ''Wait a minute! The gov't also commanded extra-low-sulfur diesel last year...why isn't diesel volatile.'' Answer: because that mkt shift occurs solely at refineries: everything needed to be done to make extra-low-sulfur diesel is done in one process. Ethanol, contrarily, is NOT blended in at the refinery, but rather post-refining, in dozens (hundreds?) of different locations.
And ethanol (usually) must get to these locations via truck or tank car; it cannot be piped. Add in an increased transportation differential for motor gasoline as opposed to diesel.
There you have it. Your tax dollars, once again, being used to distort another mkt. Say ''thank you'' to the nice man from the gov't.
In August 2005, the national Energy Bill became law, mandating production of 7.5 billion gallons per year by 2012. This is spawning a massive growth in the number of noisy, polluting ethanol biorefineries proposed for communities throughout the U.S., but will do little, if anything, to cut down U.S. oil consumption.
In 1997, the General Accounting Office concluded, "ethanol's potential for substituting for petroleum is so small that it is unlikely to significantly affect overall energy security."6 As of June 2006, there are 101 ethanol plants in operation, 7 being expanded and 34 more under construction. 7 A total of about 190 are proposed.
All these damn ethanol refineries and not one new gas refinery since 1976......Why? because of the enormous cost of building, ecological impact studies and the bureaucratic nightmare to get final approval while the ethanol refineries are being given a pass.......
A 1966 Dodge Dart ...... my first car :) Ahhh the memories :P)
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