Posted on 07/21/2007 5:01:37 PM PDT by caveat emptor
Oil refineries across the country have been plagued by a record number of fires, power failures, leaks, spills and breakdowns this year, causing dozens of them to shut down temporarily or trim production. The disruptions are helping to drive gasoline prices to highs not seen since last summer’s records.
A battery of tanks at an oil refinery in Wynnewood, Okla., burned in April after it was struck by lightning.
These mechanical breakdowns, which one analyst likened to an “invisible hurricane,” have created a bottleneck in domestic energy supplies, helping to push up gasoline prices 50 cents this year to well above $3 a gallon. A third of the country’s 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record according to analysts.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds like normal every day stuff at the plant,and oh, did I mention about the overtime pay to fix it, thank you all for your contributions.
Scandinavian?
LOL! Good one.
Sounds like it is time to start building a bunch of new refineries before we end up like the nuts in Iran.
Yeah. Ain’t that a kick? Iran is sitting on trillions of gallons of oil but they have to import their gasoline.
LOL. These days in Sweden its as common asa name ending in "berg".
So, is it (A) sabotage from within to drive prices higher, knowing that when the problems are fixed prices NEVER come down as far as they rose, or (B) sabotage from outside by the leftist environmental whacko crowd?
Good plan. Where’d I leave my $5 billion stash...
What does the Times really want. I mean, why publish this article at all. They could have just as easily published one about the record Failures of news papers, including their own, to stem the decline in advertising, circulation and earnings.
The Times seems to think that refineries operate in a Zero-Sum market that doesn’t respond to price. In truth, if you want to know how plentiful fuel really is, that is the only trend you need to look at. And the truth is simple: the average motorist can have all the gasoline they care to purchase. They may not like the price, but the Times will be hard pressed to find people who cannot find any gasoline for sale.
Of course, the NYT supports increasing the auto mileage standard, which is really only going to have one real effect: to increase the number of people who die and who are injured in traffic accidents. They believe that Bush only trades blood for oil by invading Iraq, which is only magical thinking, but they cannot understand that they are supporters of blood for oil on our nation’s highways.
Prices here in the Phoenix area are actually lower then this time last year.
Interesting, Bill O’Reilly tells me that the refiners are shutting down because someone found a mouse, an open screen door, or a pen in the wrong place, all because of greedy oil companies.
“Yeah. Ain’t that a kick? Iran is sitting on trillions of gallons of oil but they have to import their gasoline.”
We shall have to import our gasoline until the day oil companies can afford to build refineries in our country. Right now, environmental regulations make it cheaper to import finished products from abroad where they do not have these stringent restrictions.
America had better make a discount cash flow spread sheet and not only look at the economics but also at strategical considerations. Ah, but that will take leadership - something sorely lacking in our present political atmosphere.
National Geographic channel had a special on the BP Texas City refinery incident. Interesting that BP tried to pin the whole thing on the workers at the plant when BP executives wanted a 25% operating cost reduction
sound similar to Enron’s manipulations.
I hear outrage and anger about gas prices 24/7/365 from almost everybody I meet irregardless of party affiliation. Yet our leaders do nothing but posture about global warming and sabotage every baby step towards energy independence.
That disjunct shows how utterly out of touch they are.
“A battery of tanks at an oil refinery in Wynnewood, Okla., burned in April after it was struck by lightning. “
Rove is doing this from with his secret weather machine from the Bush bunker.
Medium size refinery in Coffeville, Ks down due to heavy flooding in Okla, and Ks the past few weeks.
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