Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Fact or myth regarding oil refineries in the US?

I hear both sides of this argument - some say it wouldn't matter if we drilled and found more oil - we don't have enough refineries to support the drilling efforts - then I've heard that's a myth. What's the truth?Fact or myth regarding oil refineries in the US?
The truth is we need more drilling and more refineries.





And more wind power, nuclear power, solar power, natural gas power, clean coal power.





Environmentalists want us to suffer so much we are forced to go to alternative fuels quickly.





The end result is nice, but they can stick their methods.Fact or myth regarding oil refineries in the US?
We have no refining capacity to refine more oil supply.


it is pretty much maxed out.


Since the 1980s deregulation, there has been over 2,500 oil company mergers that resulted in the smaller refineries being bought out by larger companies.


Do you know what larger companies do when that happens to make stockholders happy?


They downsize any part of a company that isn't maintaining a certain profit level. That would be those smaller refineries that get closed down.





Right-wingers want to blame environmentalists, but in reality there has only been one request to build a new refinery in over 3 decades. And that was to expand an existing refinery, not build a new one.





But regardless supply isn't the problem. If there was actually a supply problem they would have already started rationing fuel.


The dollar value is the problem, and the Bush admin is trying to play it ff as supply problems, so they don't have to take responsibility for the bad monetary policy that has devalued the US Dollar to 50% of its pre-Bush value.





if we glut the oil market enough to bring prices down, that means bad things for oil companies and your 401K when the value of the dollar actually does go back up. But that is ok, becuase the CEOs golden parachute just went from gold to platinum.
We send $700 billion to foreign countries to buy our oil each year. The US dollar would be stronger if we used domestic oil instead and didn't buy the foreign oil. Refineries don't care if the oil is from the USA or Saudi Arabia, just like your car doesn't care if you put in Shell or Exxon. The oil being refined here is mostly foreign. We drill and pump domestic oil, we replace the foreign oil in our refineries. The Democrats don't want drilling.
Well, let's see....the biggest. most profitable companies in the world haven't planned far enough ahead to extract the most profit from there product.


If that were the case and I was the CEO (or anybody) I'd fire every one of the people involved.


Domestic oil or not, that's part of running the business. You'd have to be a real screw-up to not take that into account.


It's a myth, plan and simple. Three years ago that was the claim for higher gas prices but with an increase in use over that period there doesn't seem to be a refining capacity problem.


Clear logic.
There has been 1 request to build a refinery in the US in the last 25 years, and that was approved. In that same time frame oil companies have closed several refineries. So now they are claiming a shortage of oil even though the refineries are operating at 60 to 85% of capacity, even though oil and gas exploration and drilling are going on all over the US, even though they have millions of acres of permits, now they 'have to have' ANWR and the coastal sites? Sounds like we're being conned big time by big oil and their friends, the Bush administration.
It matters because we would be refining our own oil rather than oil purchased from foreign countries. That means that more of the oil and gas money would stay in the US economy rather than going to other countries. That's a good thing even if the prices stay high, which they could if refining capacity truly is maxed out. They might drop slightly simply from the threat of the US obtain more oil to reduce their dependency on the world oil market.





However, both drilling and building refineries need to happen to have any long term impact and sounds like both might finally happen.
Myth. New refineries haven't been built, but capacity has increased to match higher consumption levels. If these wingnut parrots would spend time READING at the Chevron website(among other places), they would know this.





Refineries pollute, catch on fire for days at a time, smell horrible, leave sediment on surrounding neighborhoods, and LOWER property values. People say they want more refineries, but they want someone else to live near them.
I agree with Philip McCrevice, environmentalists want to force an instant change and its just NOT going to happen that quickly so in the mean time they think forcing us to suffer will speed the process along when the only thing it does is cause unnecessary suffering.





We need it all... drill our own oil, new refineries for immediate short term relief but wind technology, electric battery technology, water, hydrogen, nuclear, coal to liquid and anything else I left out for our future needs. The one thing we need more than anything is legislators who work together for the good of the people instead of playing party politics or selling out to special interest groups.
only to a point yes we need at least 3 new refineries but we need to increase the supply that we have this way we can flood the market with are oil and drive the price down some .Y in the world are we letting other countries drill off are shores ,and we are sitting here crying about it.The Greene's are going to destroy us ALL!! DRILL HERE DRILL NOW PAY LESS!!
So we should build more refineries.





We've added capacity but not fast.





We need to increase our capacity to refine lower grades, the prices of which haven't come up as much (in part because other countries don't refine it as much either, and because it's in greater abundance).
The liberals are DETERMINED to continue to enslave us to foreign sources of energy. Politicians can talk all they want, but they are not petrologists. They are not geologists, physicists, or energy experts. Hand it over to the private sector; this is where our problems will be solved.
My dad has been in the oil business for 35 years. He's worked all over the world in dozens of oil refineries. He knows first hand having more oil and refineries not only lowers the cost of gas but creates more jobs.
It's the truth. We haven't constructed a new refinery for many years, nor have we enlarged the capacity of those in existence.
True. We don't have the refining capacity. It has been close to 40 years since we last built a refinery.





However, drilling for more of our own would calm down these speculators - so, prices might come down.
Eco-Liberals file suit to stop vertical expansion of the Whiting Indiana BP refinery and filed suit to stop the approved refinery in South Dakota. Filed suits to stop half of current production also. I
It depends on how much more oil there will be the EIA puts out a weekly report on refinery utilization and it hasn't broken 90% since last august.
True. Oil production is restricted by a lack of refineries, not a lack of places to drill.
True we barley have enough to get done what we recieve now and in some cases it sits for a while before it gets done.
oil will save the day





hugs!
The last refinery was built in 1970. We definitely need to build more.

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