How the HELL do refinery outages raise the price of crude oil? If anything, that means refineries will be buying slightly LESS until the outages are fixed.
There's some serious manipulation going on here...
Econ 101 my friend. given constant demand for finished product a refinery shut down lowers supply thus prices rise.
Since someone, possibly you, pointed that out when the chicken little articles flooded the MSM a month ago on their regular cycle, it is as clear as a fnord when they bring up refinery capacity as an answer to everything. Why do they do that?
How the HELL do refinery outages raise the price of crude oil?
You tell me and we'll both know. Yet it seems to be received wisdom in the financial press. I'm with you, it is completely absurd on its face. I've read statements just like this on the front page of the wall street journal, who you think/hope would know better.