[American Constitutionalist]

Start building smaller scale refineries at a cheaper cost but more of them all over the place.
Same thing with building smaller pebble bottom safer nuclear power plants all over the place.
One reason that drives up the cost for most of these things is that they are centralized.
The same thing with government... when it's centralized it's less efficient.
Build more and more smaller scale refineries that could possibly made mobile ? modular ? that can be taken down and set back up in another area as needed.
Make more use of modular designs.
Have them put more funds into research and development into more smaller refineries, make them more modular, more efficient.
With a oil refinery that is not centralized it becomes less prone to risk of terrorism or some other accident.

[thackney]

Start building smaller scale refineries at a cheaper cost but more of them all over the place.

So you want lower inefficiencies combined with more infrastructure being built, to duplicate existing capacity.

And you think that lowers cost?

[Smokin' Joe]

One school of thought on mini-refineries would build 'topping facilities' to remove distillates (diesel, napthalenes) from the crude oil, use the diesel locally and ship the napthalenes and the heavier feedstock via pipeline to larger facilities for further refining. Topping facilities are relatively simple, especially compared to a major refinery.

There is an economy of scale involved in the refining of oil, and larger facilities are already tied into existing pipeline networks--both incoming and outgoing. Permitting a new facility would be tougher than expanding existing ones, as the past few years of refinery development have shown (refiners opted for the latter).

Guarding myriad facilities is perhaps more difficult than guarding one or two, even though larger facilities might be more of a terror target.

Refineries are surrounded by chemical plants for a reason: ship the feedstocks for the chemical plants next door, rather than ship them longer distances. Shipping those same multiple and more specialized feedstocks to chemical plants would negate some of the economic advantage of the more localized refineries. (Think ethylene, tolulene, etc.), especially when the costs of environmental compliance are factored in.

Where modular facilities might pay off is for the production of fertilizer or electricity from otherwise flared wellhead gas, especially if those facilities could be moved in a few truckloads. Some separation of heavier gasses, water, etc. might have to occur onsite for the process to be efficient, and the units would have to be able to be tuned to differing gas mixtures inherent in different wells and over the well's production history. Plus, all that would have to get EPA approval, which could be a real bugaboo (along with allocation of extraction taxes and royalty issues--something for the lawyers to sort out).

Still, something only flared at the production site could conceivably be turned into a viable resource.