I have been wondering for years what our country was going to do about the state of our refineries.
Refineries aren’t romantic or glamorous, but critical to our energy needs, and from what I know, we not only haven’t built any new ones, but operate the ones we have so close to the margins of operability (not shutting them down for overhaul or repair because we don’t have enough excess capacity to do so and maintain production overall) that the state of the facilities is a mess.
How they they ever get it approved with all the environmentalists who hover over these things like flies on a week old cow carcass?
Units at refineries are routinely shut down for maintenance.
Just finished one such shut down at the Whiting refinery, on Monday.
5 units were shut down at the same time.
Though we have less physical refineries, than we had 20 years ago, our refining capacity has increased.