Refinery Outages and Gas

**ichi** · 09-02-2005, 00:35

Clearly, this has demonstrated the need to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

oh, wait, hmm.

OK, this has demonstrated the need to increase our refinery capacity in the ANWR

**Papewaio** · 09-02-2005, 01:06

Well you could fight obesity and save gas and walk or bicycle...

As gas prices have risen in Australia the amount of motorcycles has increased dramatically.

And while in Taiwan where gas is relatively expensive to wages the amount of motorcycles and in particular scooters is massive... I have seen mums and four kids on a single scooter.

**Red Harvest** · 09-02-2005, 01:56

Originally Posted by Papewaio

Well you could fight obesity and save gas and walk or bicycle...

That's even a problem in many places. Texas seems to be re-doing some intersections and stuff to allow pedestrian traffic, but there are few sidewalks in many towns, and I've heard many a coworker violently opposed to them. It is distinctly pedestrian unfriendly down here.

When school is out, driving to work is so much easier. In the places I've lived in Texas, folks all tried to drive their kids to school even when it was only a block or two. Of course with the lack of sidewalks, the kids had to walk in the street. Makes me want to start into my "walked 5 miles uphill in the snow, each way" speech.

No sidewalks = no long range planning (or they would rather their kids played/walked in the street.)

**Redleg** · 09-02-2005, 03:01

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Makes me want to start into my "walked 5 miles uphill in the snow, each way" speech.

Well my walk to the bus stop was only 500 yards - and we normally rode the horses bareback to the gate to limit the amount of walking we did.

My mom of course road her horse 2 miles to her bus stop when she was a kid growing up outside of Roswell, New Mexico. Often riding both ways being chased by UFO's.

**PanzerJaeger** · 09-02-2005, 05:42

Did anyone catch that FX made for TV movie a few months ago about a hurricane knocking out New Orleans and terrorists destablizing Saudi Arabia. The results were widespread chaos in all of america do to the lack of fuel.

The movie was pretty crappy, but its wierd that it is basically playing out in real life, besides the terrorist part.

**Xiahou** · 09-02-2005, 06:03

I'm with Gawain again. This shows how tight our refining capacity was in the US. With this many refineries offline we're in some serious trouble, considering that most were running near or at capacity before hand.

**Red Harvest** · 09-02-2005, 07:07

Originally Posted by Xiahou

I'm with Gawain again.

This shows how tight our refining capacity was in the US. With this many refineries offline we're in some serious trouble, considering that most were running near or at capacity before hand.

We already knew how tight it was in the U.S., it's been that way for awhile.

This event shows that refineries weren't the oil production restriction before, so it proved the exact opposite of the refinery limit hypothesis you both were touting. The refinery outages are now effecting gasoline, but not oil price. The oil price change is far smaller and due to a shorter term oil production disruption. Contrast this with Ivan that effected oil, but not refining.

More U.S. refining capacity will help reduce U.S. gasoline price spikes due to refining outages, but not reduce oil cost because U.S. oil refining capacity is not setting oil prices.