Gasoline Prices Options

[impala454]

Just thought it'd be some interesting questions to ask. As always, explain what your choices were and why. If there's a sensible choice in one of the questions I left out, I'll add it.

[Hartmann]

I am not necessarily talking about our ability to increase refining capacity. Yeah, we can say that we don't care about the environment and build whatever you want, the problem is getting the oil companies to build them. Refineries make very little money and business revolves around money.

Dogmeat, if you worked in a refinery then you know very well that the money that comes into one is eaten up by maintenance and reliability initiatives, very little goes to the company's bottom line.

[Dogmeat]

I am not necessarily talking about our ability to increase refining capacity. Yeah, we can say that we don't care about the environment and build whatever you want, the problem is getting the oil companies to build them. Refineries make very little money and business revolves around money.

Dogmeat, if you worked in a refinery then you know very well that the money that comes into one is eaten up by maintenance and reliability initiatives, very little goes to the company's bottom line.

Can you blame the oil companies for not wanting to try to build more refineries? The post I made above should illustrate this perfectly: Why do they want to fuck around for years and years and years and years with a bunch of red-tape bullshit that will cost them millions upon millions of dollars for no apparent reason at all?

It's the same type of thing that happened when Bush got elected and instructed the EPA, DEQ, BLM and whatever agencies to relax the complete horse shit requirements for getting drilling proposals.

Your statement "Oh well yeah we can say that we don't care about the environment and build whatever you want" is completley off the mark ... Explain to me how a completley self-contained refinery on a 20-acre parcel of land, or even a 100-acre parcel of land is any different than a new subdivision, shopping complex, or ANYTHING else. It isn't.... they take VERY strict care of the surrounding grounds, testing soils, air, water, wild life, you name it ....

exept prarie dogs. they kill all the prarie dogs they find cuz they royally fuck shit up ...

but, back to the original argument .... At what point will the refining capacity vs. gross profit be maximized? You're going to reach a point where the cost of doing business isn't going to be recouped by trying to sell the same quantity of product at higher prices. You'll put yourself out of business doing that ... the oil companies have been lucky in the sense they've had enough refining capacity to meet demand. If you haven't noticed, demand hasn't gone down even with more effecient vehicles now than ever ...

I'm willing to bet you start seeing people in washington wake the fuck up and realize that if refining capacity truly is the problem and they don't cut all the red-tape bullshit and make it viable for companies to build and/or expand new refineries, we're all going to be in VERY deep shit....

However, all of this COULD be negated by the fact that there is a very large push to find alternative energy sources such as E85 .... maybe E85 is going to help balance this all out, we'll just have to wait 10 years to see.