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A recent article from the French news agency AFP highlights the international concern over US gasoline refining. The lack of refining capacity in the US is beginning to affect the world oil markets. While US holiday driving season was in years past simply a US domestic concern causing temporary gasoline price increases over peak driving periods, it now has international repercussions. The global impact and concern reflects the long-developing US gasoline refining shortage created by liberal Democrats pandering to environmentalists by legislating onerous regulations and delays, which have had the effect of blocking construction of any new refineries on US...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The world oil markets are well supplied and price volatility is the result of a lack of refining capacity in the United States, not a shortage of crude, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah was reported as saying on Monday. "Price volatility is the result of factors that are unrelated to crude supply, which is available in large quantities, but (because of) a lack of new refineries in the United States over the past 40 years," Qatar's official news agency, QNA, quoted him as saying.

Gas prices are spiking again — to an average of $3.22 a gallon, and close to $4 a gallon in many areas. And some oil executives are now warning that the current shortages of fuel could become a long-term problem, leading to stubbornly higher prices at the pump. They point to a surprising culprit: uncertainty created by the government’s push to increase the supply of biofuels like ethanol in coming years. In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush called for a sharp increase in the use of biofuels, along with some improvement in automobile fuel efficiency...

The falling price of gasoline is good news for motorists, but not everyone is celebrating. U.S. refiners are seeing thinner profit margins because pump prices have fallen to their lowest point since March, fuel stockpiles are high, and fears that hurricanes will knock out Gulf Coast refineries again this year have eased. This big shift suggests that last year's hurricane-fueled earning spike may be nearing its end. But not all the signs indicate gasoline prices will stay down. Many of the same fundamentals are in place today that had drivers crying uncle every time they gassed up a year ago....

Major oil refiners in Japan and South Korea have curbed operations this week in an effort to revive deeply negative refining margins by limiting fuel output, industry and company sources said on Wednesday. The cuts, the first broad reductions since a brief spate of curbs last November, may help boost prices of gasoline and other fuels, but may do little to rescue the ailing Asian market for fuel oil, the price of which has slumped to about $20 a barrel below the Middle East benchmark crude price, the widest gap ever. Japan's top refiner Nippon Oil Corp., which operates a...

ABU DHABI, Aug 27 (KUNA) -- General Electric's (GE) oil and gas unity said Sunday it was boosting operations in the Middle East via the development of oil production and refining in the UAE and Kuwait. Mohammad Ayyoub, GE's oil and gas regional manager for the Middle East, said in a statement GE would develop a variety of gas turbines in a gas re-injection station in Abu Dhabi. GE, he added, supplied Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC), with 12 fixed reactors to be used in a new oil refinery, to be completed by 2010 and producing up to 615,000 barrels...

Lyondell Chemical and Venezuelan government-controlled Citgo appear to be closer to ending their joint ownership of a Houston refinery. Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Tuesday that Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-run oil company that controls Citgo, would sell its 41.25 percent stake in the refinery for $2.2 billion, or $1.3 billion after debt, interest and taxes. A Lyondell spokesman said Tuesday that no agreement had been reached, but the Houston-based company had said previously it planned to buy out Citgo's stake in the 268,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery. "The proceeds from the sale will go to the company's shareholder, the Venezuelan...

Time to Remove Barriers to Boosting Oil Refining Capacity by Ben LiebermanPosted Jul 27, 2006The high price of oil is the main reason that the price of gasoline has nearly doubled over the last three years, but it is not the only reason. The cost of turning oil into gasoline has also risen, thanks in part to costly federal regulations on refinery operations and expansions. Many in Congress are aware of this problem, and the House recently passed the Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act (H.R. 5254) to address it. This very modest measure would streamline refinery-related regulations and would be...

The chief executive of Libya's National Oil Company Shokri Ghanem National Oil Co. (NOI.YY) said his country was in talks to enter a joint venture with foreign companies to expand capacity in two refineries by more than 60%, or 210,000 barrels a day. Currently the two refineries produce about 330,000 b/d, which would be increased to at least 550,000 b/d, Ghanem said speaking to foreign journalist in Tripoli Monday. Companies from the U.S., Asia, Europe and India have expressed interest in refinery projects, some even proposing building new refineries, although Ghanem didn't offer more details. Ghanem also said daily oil...

In a close vote last December, liberals in the U. S. Senate blocked efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil and gas exploration. Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens called it the "saddest day of my life," but the vote was a sadder day for American consumers. It was another missed opportunity to pursue more domestic exploration and greater energy independence. President Bill Clinton vetoed legislation in 1995 to allow drilling in ANWR, saying it provided no short-term solution to the crisis. Perhaps the nation's current energy problems would not be so acute if he had signed the...

New York Post http://www.nypost.com/business/56553.htm Sen. Jeffords' bizarre idea: To establish a nationwide network of "Strategic Reserve" petroleum refineries, to be built by the Environmental Protection Agency and fired up whenever gasoline stockpiles seem ready to run dry. Unfortunately, among the plan's many problems is the fact the government lacks the ability to construct even one refinery, let alone an entire network. The only source of that expertise? What else but the Halliburton Co. of Houston, which Sen. Clinton has been accusing since early in the Iraq war of profiteering through no-bid government contracts.

Marathon to Expand Garyville, La.-Based Refinery in $2.2 Billion Project HOUSTON (AP) -- Marathon Oil Corp., an energy concern, said it expand its Garyville, La.-based refinery production capacity in project estimated at $2.2 billion. The expansion would boost production by 180,000 barrels per day, or bpd, to 425,000 bpd from 245,000 bpd.

With crude oil prices already at record levels, a hurricane targeted the heart of America's oil and refinery operations Sunday, shutting down an estimated 1 million barrels of daily production and threatening to curtail refining activity in the region. Katrina, a Category 5 storm expected to strike near New Orleans early Monday, was churning through the Gulf of Mexico. The area is crucial to the U.S. energy infrastructure _ offshore oil and gas production, import terminals, pipeline networks and numerous refining operations throughout southern Louisiana and Mississippi. [. . .] The U.S. has ample crude oil supplies, even if major...

Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil -- more than the world is likely to need - along with an increasing ability to refine crude oil into gasoline and other products before selling it overseas, a top Saudi official says. "The world is more likely to run out of uses for oil than Saudi Arabia is going to run out of oil," Adel al-Jubeir, top foreign policy adviser for Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, said Wednesday. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Al-Jubeir said relations between his nation and the Bush administration were strong but "the...

The Refining of a Burdened and Unworthy Disciple I’m not one who seeks hope from this nation or its leadership. It, and they, have proven themselves incapable of delivering much more than empty promises to secure a vote. Early in my walk as a Christian I was very interested in our “Christian heritage”. It doesn’t really stir my heart anymore. Thousands of preborn babies are killed daily yet in my subconscious mind I held onto the hope that there was a chance for this nation to turn before God poured His judgment upon it. Not any more. Our nations’ children...

ASSOCIATED PRESS Like bartenders putting cheap alcohol into their cocktails, some U.S. refiners are reaping huge profits by using lower quality crude oil to make everything from gasoline to diesel. The difference is that, unlike martinis mixed with barnyard booze, these finished fuels, after a little extra work, are the same quality as those made with top-shelf ingredients and therefore fetch the same high price from consumers. But the initial cost per barrel is $7 to $17 cheaper. Despite the extra costs associated with processing lower quality crude, the profit margins of independent refiners able to handle it are up...

• PDVSA is shipping oil to China (Cerro Negro). • PDVSA is allegedly selling to China at a price equal to crude deliveries to US refineries based on WTI minus premium. • PDVSA's agreements with Petrochina predate Chavez. • Petrochina refineries in north China, are set to refine light crude (Venezuelan crude is heavy).

<p>May 17 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush allowed an increase in oil refinery mergers to go unchecked since he took office and may have contributed to the highest gasoline prices in 20 years as the November election approaches.</p> <p>The Bush administration approved 33 takeovers totaling $19.5 billion, on top of 21 deals worth $7.3 billion under President Bill Clinton, Bloomberg data shows. Reduced supplies were already pushing up gas prices in Clinton's term, according to a Federal Trade Commission study conducted after pump prices rose to more than $2 a gallon in Milwaukee and Chicago in 2000.</p>

Higher prices show that our insatiable demand for gasoline is catching up with our willingness to produce it. The price of gasoline rose over the winter, but that was just the beginning of an inevitable upward trend. Summer will give us an even better feel for things to come. Complaints by motorists and accusations by politicians will not avoid the unavoidable: Most Americans simply cannot have all the gasoline they want much longer. We already burn more of this precious but cheap commodity than U.S. refineries can make. For the past two years, imports climbing toward 1 million barrels per...