Most analysis I have read indicates that production cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia are the main factor boosting global oil prices. As for refining, 95+ degrees in Texas in August sounds pretty normal to me. But maybe TX FReepers can weigh in. Were a lot of records broken for many days?
Those excessively low prices you mention were a side effect of COVID and the shutdowns. Therefor it’s really not “fair” to compare the current high oil / gas prices to “COVID prices”. What IS fair is to compare gas prices in the last few months to prices when Biden took office. Oil, IMO, needs to come down to around $65 - $70 /barrel AND get low-cost-of-production areas opened up, get Keystone going, etc.
The temperatures in Texas have been unusually high for prolonged periods and that has been reported as a cause for high gas prices. I have been watching the weather channel quite a lot to follow temperatures as I am 85 and have a lot of physical work I need to do this summer, some outside and some inside unairconditioned buildings. I am renovating several houses either doing work myself or closely supervising work of others and have to time work to temperatures I can tolerate and for the amount of time I can function. I think there have been periods of 10 days or longer for over 100 in Texas, and other multiday periods over 105.
You are right, part of the problem of Covid gas prices is how quickly this affected the supply storage situation. It takes a while to shut down pumping, and storage was quickly filled up, both at the huge storage depot in Oklahoma, and in tankers at sea, so for a day or two, unbelievably, people were being paid to take away excess oil. The oil price you state may be too low for high production in the US. The last break even figure I saw, 2 years ago for N. Dakota, was around $80 a barrel. I think this has encouraged some start-up there again, but the heat and refining is a separate issue, and if the Global Warmers are correct it will only get worse. In the long run, refining may need to be built in cooler states, but that is a long drawn out expensive project.
Last I saw of the Keystone Pipeline Issue, it was dead as a doornail. It was shut down, and accumulated supplies for building it were gone, sold, whatever, but no longer in place. I don’t know about the per barrel price, but tar sands are a dense, dirty, toxic substance that has other problems which make it a more expensive substance to turn into fuel. Must Google it to see recent info. With Canadian wildfires, I am reminded that the town nearby the tar sands with some 80,000 people nearly burned down almost completely a few years back.
I was given a little Standard Oil stock at birth, which has morphed to BP stock, and last I looked was in the toilet along with my GE stock.