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I don't know why a spike in gasoline prices puts so many people into a frenzy.
Gas prices spike, people start yelping 'drill' and 'get us off foreign dependence'!
Gas prices sink back down, and the talk dies away.
The Middle East situation will, of course, settle down sooner or later. Gas will flow easily again. Prices will go back down (although they never actually go back down to pre-spike levels, although the actual price per barrel may do so). Exxon-Mobile will, once again, announce huge net profits next year.
And so it goes.
Of course, with the rise of India and China, the demand for oil will increase, as will prices. Indeed, if the Middle East truly becomes unstable, war may well break out between counties that want to take over those oil deposits.
With gas expected to reach $5 a gallon by summer, is NOW the time to start drilling here, and the hell with what the environmentalist say or think?
In the words of Sarah Palin, DRILL BABY DRILL!!!
the USA should have been drilling in anwr and other places in the USA 20 years ago. stop waiting for opec to drive the country to utter ruin and get off the foreign oil teat.
I don't know why a spike in gasoline prices puts so many people into a frenzy.
Gas prices spike, people start yelping 'drill' and 'get us off foreign dependence'!
Gas prices sink back down, and the talk dies away.
The Middle East situation will, of course, settle down sooner or later. Gas will flow easily again. Prices will go back down (although they never actually go back down to pre-spike levels, although the actual price per barrel may do so). Exxon-Mobile will, once again, announce huge net profits next year.
And so it goes.
Of course, with the rise of India and China, the demand for oil will increase, as will prices. Indeed, if the Middle East truly becomes unstable, war may well break out between counties that want to take over those oil deposits.
Actually, people have always been saying get us off foreign dependence, but it is only when gasoline prices spike are their voices are being heard. Unless we enjoy foreign conflicts, it only make sense to reduce our dependence on foreign sources. Oil is a critical national resource, and for national security reasons alone we should never import more than 50% of a critical national resource.
I'd like to see where you're seeing the refineries working at 98% capacity.
At best I've seen them operating at 75% capacity because they need 25% down for regular maintenance, then rotate that around. And, as with many other things, they can build refineries in Mexico and Canada, and none of the oil companies are doing that right now to get around any government regulation.
Its like a drug dealer. They give you a taste, then slowly rise the price on you once your addicted.
Oil companies are having record profits right now, and there are no ifs, ands, or buts abut that.
My main point is there is no more room to increase capacity to refine oil. In fact we have lost refining capacity as well.
12-06-01 No new refineries have been built in the US in the past 25 years. And petroleum industry experts say anyone would have to be crazy to launch such an effort -- even
though present refineries are running at nearly 100 % of capacity and local gasoline shortages are beginning to crop up. </H3>
FactCheck.org: Does the U.S. lack sufficient oil refining capabilities? (http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html - broken link)
This past week, the Energy Department reported that more than 90 percent of the nation's refinery capacity is now in service. As more gasoline is produced, Westfall expects prices to drop, but not by much. He says the United States is still just one big refinery shutdown away from another spike in prices. And he doesn't expect that to change any time soon
Here is the capcity report if you really that interested:
Originally Posted by brien51 but this us government has not given anyone "permission" to build anymore refineries in the us in more than 25 years.
:
The people of the us are stupid
Laugh all you want but the truth is no new refineries have been built in 29+ years.
There are plenty of reasons gas costs so much, but one of them is that the United States doesn't have enough refineries. The National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association says that the last new refinery built in the United States was Marathan Ashland's Garyville, La., plant—and it was completed in 1976
Refiners want to be near the water, but now it's practically impossible for them to find a place to build. Refineries are high on the list of least-wanted industrial sites. This report from the California Energy Commission notes that even though 10 refineries representing 20 percent of the state's refining capacity were closed between 1985 and 1995, "it is unlikely that new refineries will be built in California." Why? Locals are concerned about the environmental impact of refineries, their contribution to smog, their traffic of giant trucks carrying hazardous materials, and the potential for devastating leaks in event of an earthquake.
Concern over coastal land values is also inhibiting new discoveries of oil and gas. President Bush has pushed exploration in U.S. borders and territorial waters as a moral imperative. The need for energy independence is so compelling that it's worth drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Bush won't send the drills anywhere close to the clean beaches of the Florida panhandle. The Clinton administration in the late 1990s proposed selling exploration leases for some 6 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. But in 2001, after Florida Gov. Jeb Bush protested loudly, the government reduced the potential leasable area by about 75 percent. As the Department of Interior took pains to announce, "the area lies 100+ miles from any portion of the Florida coast; for example, its northern border is more than 100 miles from Pensacola, Florida, and the eastern edge is 285 miles from the shores of Tampa Bay."
Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections - US appears to have built its last refinery (http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn12966.htm - broken link)
US appears to have built its last refinery
Quote:
12-06-01 No new refineries have been built in the US in the past 25 years. And petroleum industry experts say anyone would have to be crazy to launch such an effort -- even though present refineries are running at nearly 100 % of capacity and local gasoline shortages are beginning to crop up.
Why does the industry appear to have built its last refinery?
Three reasons: Refineries are not particularly profitable, environmentalists fight planning and construction every step of the way and government red-tape makes the task all but impossible. The last refinery built in the US was in Garyville, Louisiana, and it started up in 1976.
Energy proposed building a refinery near Portsmouth, Virginia, in the late 1970s, environmental groups and local residents fought the plan -- and it took almost nine years of battles in court and before federal and state regulators before the company cancelled the project in 1984. Industry officials estimate the cost of building a new refinery at between $ 2 bn and $ 4 bn -- at a time the industry must devote close to $ 20 bn over the next decade to reducing the sulphur content in gasoline and other fuels -- and approval could mean having to collect up to 800 different permits. As if those hurdles weren't enough, the industry's long-term rate of return on capital is just 5 % -- less than could be realized by simply buying US Treasury bonds. "I'm sure that at some point in the last 20 years someone has considered building a new refinery," says James Halloran, an energy analyst with National City Corp. "But they quickly came to their senses," he adds.
So laugh all you want but the truth is that the US government makes it impossible to build new refineries.
Thus my conclusion for the US to switch to LNG to power electric plants, all vehicles, and to heat homes. We have a hundred year supply to satisfy demand just sitting idle waiting to be used to wean the dopes from foreign oil.
As of jan 2017 OPEC will be cutting oil production by 1.2 million barrels a day. Expect gas to rise sharply. The u.s. has plenty of oil & I don't know why we have to deal with OPEC.
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