Just as I predicted, gas prices . . .

[Brucelee]

Despite more money being made by the industry than has ever been made not a single new refinery has gone up in a loooong time.

This issue has been beaten to death. The are some new refineries now in process but you can blame the greenies and their ilk for pastlack of new plant building . Soft costs and delays in construction have mounted as of course, NO ONE wants a refinery anywhere near where THEY live. The Greenies would rather have biofuel plants built and will oppose anything not on their agenda, prices be damned.

Moreover, the oil industry has consistently lagged the ROI for companies overall, so if they are such masters at generating returns, they are hiding it quite well.

[z12358]

Brucelee:
"Moreover, the oil industry has consistently lagged the ROI for companies overall, so if they are such masters at generating returns, they are hiding it quite well."

They should ask for some tax breaks, then.

Z.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by z12358

Brucelee:
"Moreover, the oil industry has consistently lagged the ROI for companies overall, so if they are such masters at generating returns, they are hiding it quite well."

They should ask for some tax breaks, then.

Z.

Well, nice response but no data. Again, the FTC and state AGs have been trying to nail the oil companies for price fixing for about 5 decades. If these guys are so great at price fixing, it does not show up in their ROI and NO govt type can EVER catch them.

Interesting don't you think? But, conspiracy theories actually don't need any proof, do they?

Hmmmm.

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

The lack of Refineries is not at all the whole story. Alarmists often cite the reduction in actual refineries rather than the true reduction in capacity simply because it has greater impact to do so - the use & abuse of statistics. The information below is sourced from the EIA (Energy Information Administration), a department within the DOE (Dept. of Energy).


Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69 percent to 87 percent. Much of the decline in U.S. refining capacity resulted from the 1981 deregulation (elimination of price controls and allocations), which effectively removed the major prop from underneath many marginally profitable, often smaller, refineries.

Refinery closures have continued since 1989, bringing the total number of operable U.S. refineries to 132 as of January 1, 2006 . In general, refineries that have closed were relatively small and had less favorable economics than other refineries in their market area. Also, in recent years, some smaller, less-economic refineries that needed additional investments for environmental reasons in order to stay in business found closing preferable because they predicted that they could not stay competitive in the long term.

While some refineries have closed, and no new refineries have been built in 29 years, many existing refineries have expanded their capacities. As a result of “capacity creep," whereby existing refineries create additional refining capacity from the same plant, capacity per operating refinery increased by 28 percent over the 1990 to 1998 period. Overall, since the mid-1990s, U.S. refinery capacity has increased from 15.0 million bbl/d in 1994 to 17.1 million bbl/d in September 2005. As of November 4, 2005, utilization of operating capacity at U.S. refineries was averaging around 84 percent, down from 91 percent on September 16, 2005 following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In other words, we are still not using anywhere near 100% capacity of existing refineries.

There has been a major shift in Oil usage since the early '80's. The reduction in manufacturing in the US over these years has lessened the pressure on Oil demand considerably. But, other uses have increased. We consume about 43% of all refinery production as Gasoline (relatively constant since 1981), the rest is used in Industry, Diesel, Jet Fuel, etc.

Also, many people are unaware of how our foreign oil is sourced. Our #1 source of foreign oil is from Canada (1.9 mm bpd), followed by Saudi Arabia(1.6 mm bpd), Mexico (1.5 mm bpd), and Venezuela (1.4 mm bpd). So, OPEC isn't as prominant an influence as many believe since neither Canada or Mexico are members.

What all this means is that the primary factor in Gas prices is not OPEC, or refining capacity, it's mainly demand...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Brucelee]

Jim,

If you keep confusing us with FACTS, we are going to think you are a market economics fan!

[z12358]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

Jim,

If you keep confusing us with FACTS, we are going to think you are a market economics fan!

Hopefully, we can agree that facts need to be relevant to the point you are trying to make. If not, here's a fact in response: 2+2=4.

The original hypothesis in this thread was whether "someone" with enough motives and means could have influenced the price of unleaded gas to (get ready for facts): go down for months before Nov 7, bottom out right around that date, and then rally straight back up during the following month.

Nobody is questioning that supply and demand ultimately define a price for a market. Hence, anybody who can control one or both variables in that equation, wil be able to affect the price itself. Econ 101.

Z.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by z12358

Hopefully, we can agree that facts need to be relevant to the point you are trying to make. If not, here's a fact in response: 2+2=4.

The original hypothesis in this thread was whether "someone" with enough motives and means could have influenced the price of unleaded gas to (get ready for facts): go down for months before Nov 7, bottom out right around that date, and then rally straight back up during the following month.

Nobody is questioning that supply and demand ultimately define a price for a market. Hence, anybody who can control one or both variables in that equation, wil be able to affect the price itself. Econ 101.

Z.

The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they can't be DISPROVEN. However, if you go back and trace energy price movements over say, the last 50 yrs) you will see that they are highest in summer (auto driving and A/C demand) then tend to trail down in fall (less driving and less cooling demand) and then they move higher into winter (heating season demand, auto travel around holidays).

Now, since elections in this country happen in November ................................!

[Steve Fine]

The Oil companies didn't need to open new refiniries, new technology has allowed them to refine much more product at existing refineries, they have actually been closing refineries down. No one wants to build new refinerys because nthat would leave hem with excess capacity. If demand exceeds supply, they make more money by raising prices rather than by building new plants for which the demand might dry up.

Originally Posted by Brucelee

Despite more money being made by the industry than has ever been made not a single new refinery has gone up in a loooong time.

This issue has been beaten to death. The are some new refineries now in process but you can blame the greenies and their ilk for pastlack of new plant building . Soft costs and delays in construction have mounted as of course, NO ONE wants a refinery anywhere near where THEY live. The Greenies would rather have biofuel plants built and will oppose anything not on their agenda, prices be damned.

Moreover, the oil industry has consistently lagged the ROI for companies overall, so if they are such masters at generating returns, they are hiding it quite well.