[dennisw]

Thanks for clarifying the situation. California and Washington State oil refineries might be overwhelmed by this huge Alaska oil discovery and the enviro-wackos won’t allow the refineries to expand. This might force the oil to be sent abroad

[thackney]

California and Washington State oil refineries might be overwhelmed by this huge Alaska oil discovery

Not hardly. The west coast already imports another 1.2~1.5 million barrels per day in addition to all the oil from Alaska. If it became that large, they could just displace that oil without any changes at the refineries.

At least half of those imports come from OPEC. We could do without them.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcp_a2_r50_ep00_ip0_mbblpd_m.htm

[tinamina]

I happen to live near the Anacortes Shell refinery and have a brother who is a supervisor there. A lot of their oil comes from the Alaska pipeline but that flow is slowing. There are always oil tankers out there delivering crude to be refineries. I think the Anacortes Shell refinery is mostly for jet fuel though. There are other refineries though, BP and Tesoro here and then in Martinez CA there is another Shell refinery along with others.