Dubya says that they haven’t built any new refineries in the last 20 some years. Why the hell not? They thought they would magically appear? They wanted to have an oil crisis first? They wanted to get uncle sam to pay for it?
Easy answer:
There was enough capacity
Too many enviromental hurdles to jump through for approval
True answer: Its a part of the same fucking conspiracy by the oil companies to fuck consumers. Just like the price of gas getting jacked up last night/today just in time for the long weekend… like EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN OTHER LONG WEEKEND
Now, where’s my prozac…?
Here’s a good piece on the situation. Note that the whole “environmental hurdle” argument is myth and nonsense.
I heard an interview with Billy Tozan the other day.R La.
An oil state.
When the interviewer,I forget who it was, said that both prez and v prez were oil men he said “good. we have someone who understands energy” or something to that effect.
Now if two rich Energy guys really understood wouldn’t you think they would have gotten together and built a refinery?
What long weekend? Is there some obscure holiday people are taking off Monday or something? In my area the gas prices are going up every day(or every two on a good week), regardless of how much time people get off…
Sorry. My bad. Its a long weekend here in Canada. I guess I should have explained more.
Why is the whole environmetal issue nonsense? Since when don’t refineries harm the environment?
Well this is interesting, because I personally know of 2 new refineries, built within the last 20 years that I’ve lived in Alaska. One in Kenai/Nikiski and one in Valdez. There could be more, but those are the ones I’ve seen.
So, I don’t get it - am I missing something here? I didn’t watch/hear the speach referred to in the OP.
Lost- The Nikiski Tesoro refinery was first built in 1963. The Valdez facility used to be a Petro Star, itself built in the late '60s or early '70s.
Both, of course, have been added on to, modified and upgraded as needed over the years, but neither is what anyone could call a “new” installation.
I’m told the “newest” refinery in the US was built near New Orleans in 1976.
Lost
Maybe Dubya is just talking about Texas oil.
Well I don’t want to belabor the point, or create a debate, and please correct me if I’m wrong - but I watched the Valdez refinery go up where there was nothing before it (except maybe a pipe in the ground?).
This site Petro Star says that the refinery was completed in 1993.
I do recall that Petro had some type of operation in Valdez (not a refinery, iirc) but to the best of my knowledge this a brand new refinery.
Perhaps his comment does refer only to Texas oil.
lost
Or perhaps about refineries in the lower 48.
On CBC Newsworld I heard someone say that refineries are too expensive. They’re a very long-term investment on the part of the oil companies. So long, in fact, that they have to take into account the development of fuel cells etc. . If there were a new refinery built this year, but one could buy a fuel-cell power car by 2007, then whoever built the refinery would lose money. At least, that’s one reason why they don’t build new refineries now; maybe 15 years ago, “refinery creep” was all that was needed to produce enough.
Even if Bush/Cheney can claim no new refineries, there most certainly has been added capacity to existing refineries. I lived near two in Anacortes, Wash., and as a reporter covered various fatal accidents and damaging spills in the ten years I lived there.
When they weren't making changes required by the state Department of Ecology or Department of Labor and Industries because of those incidents, they were adding the ability to make more fuel.I was reading an article in AOL news a couple of days back where it said the USA is going to start rebuilding closed refineries and start using them. In the same article, it was pointed out that we closed refineries because it was cheaper to buy crude from the Arabs, then send it to places like Japan and Taiwan to have it refined and shipped back. That came as a surprise to me because I remember the big uproar over the Alaskan Pipeline, which was to provide us all with cheap gas.
Then suddenly, the Oil Barons of Texas, who were sneering at the rest of us one year when they hiked up prices and becoming real pains with their obnoxious consumerism, were going broke, shutting down wells and closing out projects designed to find new oil. Then I heard that we were running out of oil, which was why we decided to increase consumption of Arab oil.
Damn! Talk about lying to us. I guess if they had told us the real reason, we’d have rioted because depending on our oil from a pretty much hostile nation would have caused riots. Actually, I think the Government just got tired of the Texas attitude and greed. Then, a couple of years ago, I read where our major banks were investing in crude from Arabia, which stunned me because of two reasons: first the volatile market in crude due to the Arabs screwing with the prices and, second, increasing the value of the stock usually means we pay more at the pump. It seemed to me that the banks were deliberately making it more expensive for us to buy gas.
Then, somewhere in the last year, I read a report of fuel shortages or price increases caused by the Arabs having to slow down pumping in order to keep the World Economy flowing smoothly.
Now, I am confused.
Last month I read reports of price fixing and price gouging at the pumps by commercial buyers of gas, which indicated that they were getting gas cheap but wanted more money. Then, as summer gets hotter, I read of rising gas prices due to higher consumption, which happens every year, so one would assume the fuel companies would lay in a large stock for such occasions.
Then, California has problems because the fuel prices went higher than the power plants could afford. So, who the heck is telling the truth? So far, two major oil companies have been investigated for increasing prices, while other sources say the Arabs had to reduce flow to keep various economies stable, which indicates to me that they were producing enough gas to lower the prices at the pump.
Another article even said that the American pigheadedness over just having to have cars that get the gas mileage of a military tank encourages the Arabs to increase oil prices, to destabilize our economy, and when we switch to more economical cars, they lower the prices to screw with us again, knowing that the car makers will start pushing gas guzzlers again and they will keep doing it to screw with us. It seems to have happened just as the article said.
Half of the US drives SUVs and the prices are going up and we’re in a recession. Americans do not seem to learn very well, unlike the British and Japanese who drive small cars and keep driving small cars.
I no longer know who is the gas villain anymore.