Posted on 08/17/2015 7:38:02 AM PDT by Lorianne
A 30- to 40-cent jump in gas prices in the Twin Cities area in the past few days is being blamed on the shutdown of part of a large Indiana oil refinery, according to industry officials.
While the national average for gasoline midweek was $2.58, most stations in Minneapolis, St. Paul and suburbs were charging $2.79 or more.
Other states were harder hit. In Michigan, a gallon of regular was running $2.91 or more.
Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com, said BP’s refinery in Whiting, Ind., had problems with its largest crude distillation unit, which handled more than half the facility’s capacity. The refinery is the seventh largest in the U.S. and the biggest in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website.
Michigan U.S. Rep. Fred Upton and Indiana U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, jointly sent a letter to the head of British Petroleum asking about the refinery shutdown, while Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette also wrote Friday, asking for an explanation.
Gas prices — at least in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area — started to fall Friday, though. GasBuddy said the lowest price found was $2.44 at several spots in Hastings. The highest was $2.89 at stations in Minneapolis, Minnetonka and South St. Paul.
Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com, said BP’s refinery in Whiting, Ind., had problems with its largest crude distillation unit, which handled more than half the facility’s capacity. The refinery is the seventh largest in the U.S. and the biggest in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I wonder how that will play in other places? Will that be the excuse they need to jack the pump rices up?
You do not play with distillation units if they are not behaving properly.
For those of you who do not understand, refining oil is a process of “cooking” it, adding chemicals to break molecular chains so various components can be separated and removed.
As one might imagine, cooking a flammable product can be dangerous under the wrong conditions.
If a distillation unit is not behaving properly, it can result in anything from a spill to an explosion.
All these politicians who want an investigation better think twice before applying pressure to utilize an improperly functioning distillation unit.
But, this is what happens when gov’t and business are in bed together. Imagine a refinery owned by the gov’t. It is an election year, so the politicians tell the refinery to max output and keep prices low for votes. But they push the refinery and an explosion takes place. The politicians will say they had nothing to do with it.
This reason was being used last week in Tulsa for a 20 cent jump in the price.
Count yourself lucky. Our gas prices went up to $1.20CDN+/-/litre early last week. That is equivalent to $3.50 USD/US gallon.
In one way, I’m glad that Keystone has not gone through. We (Canadians) should not be shipping bitumen or crude oil to be processed abroad. We should be refining it and shipping finished products to other countries. Unfortunately, we remain a country of ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’, rather than producing finished goods! It is no wonder our economy is so subject to the vagaries of the world economy.
If they do, it won’t last long. Supply and demand work if the government stays out of the way. Just waiting for the politicians to show up and start attacking “big oil”. The government makes more on a gallon of gas than the oil companies do.
$3.65 in the San Fernando valley near Los Angeles.
Our very high prices are because of a 60 cent gas tax hike.
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