Because the nanny-state can't afford to build infrastructure. It is much more important that we pay for social services for the 51% of deadbeats that vote for "gimme socialism".
Posted on 09/21/2007 8:55:12 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco on Friday said they would go ahead with a $7 billion expansion of the Port Arthur, Tex. refinery that would create the largest U.S. refinery and one of the biggest worldwide.
The plan is to expand the refinery's capabilities by 325,000 barrels a day, resulting in a refinery with a throughput capacity of 600,000 barrels a day, according to a statement from Motiva Enterprises, the jointly held unit of Shell and the state-owned Saudi Aramco.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
About time!
Just doing the work American companies won’t do.
Eggs. Basket. One.
How about a brand new facility that isn’t a fat terrorist target?
OK, so I am confused:
1. Why are foreigners building refineries on our soil (profit margin?)
2. I thought refineries were hard to build due to strict EPA regulations
Or,
Since it is an expansion of an existing refinery, it is kind of a way around the EPA regs. Either way, it is good news to me.
What they are saying is that the American people can’t do this on their own? Why do we need London and the Arabs. We are giving this country away.
Re: We are giving this country away.
I think past tense should be used there.
And are they going to try to stop women from building or entering the refinery?
(From the article: The construction will require 4,500 jobs, and the new capacity will result in 300 full-time jobs being created.)
Yeah. I don’t care who partners or pays as long as it is on our soil and gets built.
If you like New Orleans, you’ll love Port Arthur. It’s a mini NOLA on the La. border in the S.E. corner of Texas.
But hey! The Cajun food is great!
7 Billion is a huge amount of money for an investment.. and 300 very high paying jobs is a great thing.
The Saudis will own this country one day.
Why does Armaco have to be involved? I take umbrage that this project can’t be totally done with US resources. As a matter of fact, while I’m on the topic, I also take offense that Nasdaq looks to sell itself too!
And when they do, their first priority will be to drill in Anwar, and in the Gulf off Florida, and in............
Excellent news.
Build new refineries or get us off of oil entirely. These “upgrades” aren’t going to do anything to lower the price.
Wow!
I just looked it up after your post:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2007/9/21/should-dubai-buy-part-of-the-nasdaq.html
There are no real US oil companies left. When Bill Clinton approved the BP buy out of ARCO, he sold out the last 100% US oil company.
Because the nanny-state can't afford to build infrastructure. It is much more important that we pay for social services for the 51% of deadbeats that vote for "gimme socialism".
This news tends to indicate what people with real money think of the push to ethanol, which is to validate it has limits. When this refinery comes on line the owners expect that the capital investment and the risk they are taking will be profitable.
This was originally a Texaco refinery.
It was then moved into a downstream (refineries, distribution, gas stations) joint venture between Texaco and Saudi in the Eastern/Middle part of the country.
About a decade ago, Shell and Texaco started a downstream joint venture -- Motiva on the East/Middle and Equilon in the West. Since Saudi was part of the Eastern Texaco joint venture -- and didn't want to get rid of their investment -- Motiva has three partners in it.
When Texaco was merged with Chevron, it sold it's interests in Motiva and Equilon to Shell, so now Equilon is owned by Shell totally and Motiva is a two-partner group, with Shell holding the majority of the company.
Yeah, and that great patriot, Barney Frank, has already declared it a non-issue. I am amazed that these politicians will sell out this country so fast for whatever small campaign donation it takes to get their support. It’s all about amasing power for themselves. Whatever happened to the George Washington types who always thought of the greater good of the country and never counted personal gain? Is there no one left in America who wouldn’t sell out this country for a $1,000 contribution and an invitation to the next big lobbyist event in DC??
********************************EXCERPTS*******************************
The plan is to expand the refinery's capabilities by 325,000 barrels a day, resulting in a refinery with a throughput capacity of 600,000 barrels a day,......
*****************************
Motiva said the expansion is the equivalent of building the first new refinery in the U.S. in more than 30 years. It expects the capacity to be online in 2010.
**********************************
James Neale, a Citigroup analyst, said the decision by Shell could be a surprise given that it has sold some Western hemisphere refining capacity in recent years.
********************************************
*************************************
Refinery bottlenecks have been a key factor in pushing oil prices to record highs, including Thursday's landmark level of over $83 a barrel.
**************************************
Its not like they can take it home with them.
My guess is that is is much easier to get approval to expand an existing facility than to build a new one.
Between anti-oil environmentalists and NIMBY politics, it has to be nearly impossible to get approval to build a new facility.
Not only does no one want a smelly refinery in their back yard, they don't want a terrorist target in their back yard either.
We will sell anything to the highest bidder.. including basically our country, and its probably always been true. I highly suspect our media covers up muslim violence because major shareholders are muslims and they demand it.
I view our super rich at a disadvantage against Saudi super rich as well. They pay no taxes on the money they make. So their exponential growth is much larger over the long run. We all know the difference between 12% compounded and 8%. Yet 12% after paying 33% income taxes is 8% a year.
Finally the Saudis being a kingdom can make long range decisions. If they were a democracy I have no doubt they’d be spending every dollar they made in oil instead of ivnesting a good chunk, and their democratic party would be yelling to increase production dramatically to expand their national health care system.
I forgot to add.. this is one type of investment I don’t have a problem with foreigners making. If you want to build massive capital plant here in America, sure thanks!
>7 Billion is a huge amount of money for an investment.. and 300 very high paying jobs is a great thing.<
Imagine that, 300 jobs for illegals. Gov. Perry is quite the man.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.