Running all out, U.S. refineries can't meet demand for gasoline

[True_Blue]

WASHINGTON | America's unquenched thirst for gasoline is stretching the nation's refineries to their limits. Even so, no new refineries are likely to be built soon, and that helps ensure that gas prices will stay high as America becomes increasingly dependent on foreign-made gasoline.

High investment costs and low profits have discouraged the building of any new U.S. refineries since 1976. Absent new refineries, rising demand for gas will outpace American refiners' ability to make it.

U.S. and global demand for gasoline are at all-time highs. American refineries are running at more than 90 percent capacity, and at up to 96 percent in peak times. That's close to full throttle, and without precedent.

The soaring demand is highly profitable for refiners, who are squeezing out every gallon of gas they can. But their strain to meet the demand is one reason you're paying so much at the pump.
more....
http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-gasolinejun04,0,304911.story?coll=all-businesslocal-hed

[LynnTheDem]

1. Time to INVADE CANADA!

Why bother with alternative fuels! Just take other people's resources.

[Barkley]

23. No! First Venuzuela then Canada!

[Ravenseye]

42. The Canadians will be easier.

No need for transporting troops down to Venezuela only to have to fight tropical forest mountain guerilla's for twenty years. We have superhighways punching into Canada in a ton of places. We could take most of the country inside of a week I bet.

Canadians are such nice people too. They won't even realize that the neo-anschluss has happened till it's too late. They'll just offer Molsen to the passing tanks or something.

[loudsue]

43. Leave the Canadians alone!!

Where else are we all going to go after the republicans have finished ruining this country?

I like Canada!

America can either build a new refinery (Oh.My.God! There might be some JOBS created, for a change!! :applause: ), or buy refined gas from our neighbors, and see how high gas prices can actually go around here.

More joy under a republican dictatorship: refiners are getting their piece of consumer tail just like the oil producer/theives...and we're all getting screwed daily.

:kick:

[Ravenseye]

52. Bora Bora

That's where I'm going to go. Beautiful island, water, people...

I like Canada also, that's why we need to annex it and pillage their natural resources

Death to Canada!

ps: Don't you think using the :sarcasm: tag takes some of the oomph out of statements?

[Massacure]

48. Canada has the 15th largest miitary in the world, plus hellish winters.

[Ravenseye]

51. I thought

The U.S. military was bigger than the rest of the world's combined?

Hell, the California National Guard is probably bigger than Canada's military...

Repeat after me: Unprotected border.

Death To Canada!

[Pachamama]

2. PEAK OIL Baby!!! We hit it and its all downhill from here!

Americans are just beginning to get the taste of things to come...

Meanwhile, I just bought a "wagon" for the back of my bike....it can hold the 2 Pachababies and I can bike to the farmers market & grocery store....More Americans will be discovering this in time too...

[dad]

6. no they won't

Most of us don't live on roads with sidewalks, and if we tried to bike to a store we'd get our asses run over.

[theHandpuppet]

10. Sidewalks -- one of my fave subjects!

Gee, do you think there's a reason that all the new burbs and developments don't come with sidewalks? Sidewalks that allow folks to walk, run or bike when they could be DRIVING instead?

I'm not going to go on at length about the subject of sidewalks, but let's just say they are such benefits to having them that someone could write a thesis about it. I live in an older neighborhood with generous sidewalks, where I can watch the children play and exercise all day on bikes, skateboards, play games, walk to and from school or the playground (childhood obesity is not a problem here!) or view the latest children's mural being created with sidewalk chalk. We can take our dogs for long walks, chat with the neighbors who we meet along the way (the vast majority of the houses have the old-fasioned front porches), walk to the store or to town where we can frequent the local small businesses.

Sidewalks, along with other disappearing elements such as the front porch, create a sense of real community for any neighborhood. They are also ecologically friendly, reducing the need for gas-guzzling cars.

Anyway, that's enough on that subject for this morning. Time for some coffee.

[NNN0LHI]

12. I don't have sidewalks

I have to walk my dogs on a road with a 25 MPH speed limit and still damned near get run over every time I go by some punk. The cat used to go with us too. He just about got nailed one day so he can't go no more. I wish I had sidewalks.

Don

[kineneb]

34. Neither do we

We feel extremely lucky to have paved roads, many people in this county have dirt streets. On the other hand, no one cares if you walk in the middle of side streets. You just move when a car comes along.

[LiberallyInclined]

37. plenty of sidewalks around here-

in northern IL, all of the new subdivisions i've seen have sidewalks- along with HUGE houses that seem way too close together for my liking.

[TahitiNut]

14. Sidewalks?? (tsk, tsk) They're soooo, sooo ... pedestrian.

:evilgrin:

Let's be aware that the term 'pedestrian' attained the connotation of a mild epithet from the perspective of elitism -- an elitism that demeaned those not wealthy enough to ride in a coach and four. The McMansion 'burbs are the least likely to have sidewalks -- because they're deliberately designed to appeal to that very same elitism!

[oblivious]

3. Guess that proves oil's been way too cheap for way too long.

If people are willing to buy more than ever even at these high prices.

What the hay! Double it again.

[jody]

4. In a few years present refining capacity will exceed oil supply. n/t

[LaurenG]

5. Check out rep. Roscoe Bartlett's website and his recent C-Span

Appearance. He says (a republican mind you) we have not built refineries because there is not enough to refine. He says with luck we can continue consuming at this rate for two years, after that it's bye bye oil.

http://www.bartlett.house.gov/
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/402

[lebkuchen]

7. "You'll have to pry the stickshift of my RV out of my cold dead hand"

America: Out of the loop and enjoys being there.

[drduffy]

8. Pachamama's right

When the gas runs out for us peons... and it will... and not that long off, it will be bicycles and horses and donkey carts. You won't have to worry too much about being run down by the cars and trucks.Think 1910. Think no grocery stores (no trucks to carry the food 1500 miles to your convenience.) No plastic garbage bags. Financial and social collapse. Wahhh. No more driving my Austin Healey. But maybe I'll finally get healthy again walking and riding my bike.

[LiberallyInclined]

38. alternatives will be found.

even if it means going back to stanley steamers(NOT the carpet guys).

there's too much money to be made for someone with something not to fill the gap.

electric cars, bio-diesel, etc.

as un-healthy as the average american is, there's money to be made in getting them to and fro.

[shanti]

44. light rail

they have a station within walking distance of my home. it's a blessing too, cause it goes to within a half block of my workplace. i've been riding it for 5 years solidly (10 years off and on) and have definitely noticed an increase in ridership as of late. when the extension to folsom is complete in a few months, it will be even more utilized.

[LiberallyInclined]

53. not much help in running errands

american society is designed around the automobile- all those highways and garages aren't just going to go empty.

btw- my wife uses heavy rail to get to work- the station is 2.5 miles from our house, and the 3rd stop on the line is just a block from her job- she runs to the train in the morning, showers/changes at work, then changes back before leaving, and runs home from the station in the evening.

[jpak]

40. In 1910 most places in the US had electric trolley systems

Even in rural areas where you would not expect them to exist.

I collect antique maps of Maine. The network of trolley systems that existed in (mostly rural) Maine at the beginning of the early 20th Century was impressive (over 500 miles in 1915). There were trolley lines everywhere.

These weren't the million-dollar-per-meter light electric rail systems we have today. They worked off low-power DC grids and were very convenient (and cheap to ride).

It's too bad they were scrapped at the beginning of the Automobile Age...

[struggle4progress]

46. The trolley systems weren't simply "scrapped": in many cases, ...

... the automotive industry bought the companies and killed the trolley component:

General Motors' Destruction of California Transit Systems
... California transit systems destroyed by GM included those in the East Bay, San Jose, Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, San Diego and the biggest, Los Angeles. There were probably more, but I can prove these from records ...
http://www.trainweb.org/mts/ctc/ctc06.html


Taken For a Ride
Reviewed by John Anderson

Streetcars Undesired
TV Filmmakers make a case: GM took us for a Ride

Let's propose a truly far-fetched scenario: You've just driven home from work and you're hot not just because it's summer, but because you've been trapped like a rat on one of our gloriously car-clogged highways, pounding the dashboard, threatening the entirety of public planning with unspeakable acts and wondering how you ever ended up in this hellish mess.

Relax. Take a breath. Recite your mantra. But if the aforementioned is anything close to your personal reality, you'd better consult a physician before turning on the documentary series P.O.V. tonight . What you see and hear might be enough to crack your psychic engine block.

Taken for a Ride whose "point of view" is perfectly clear is a scenic tour of how General Motors, beginning in 1922, dismantled urban mass transit across the United States and made mobility contingent upon the gas engine. By buying up trolley systems through its shadow subsidiary, National City Lines GM systematically gutted those streetcar companies and made efficient, reliable, clean transportation a endangered species.

Directed by Jim Klein and Marcy Olson, Taken for a Ride tells a story that's been told before. But their use of archival footage, GM's own film propaganda and interviews with the people who ran the assassinated rail-car systems makes the film a potent piece of environmental and political activism. <snip>

http://www.newday.com/reviews/TakenforaRideREV.html

[Joebert]

49. AAAHHHHH Stupid GM. n/t.

[hatrack]

50. By 1920 you could travel from New York to Cleveland by light rail/trolleys

With one 20-mile gap in the system (somewhere in upstate New York, I believe).

[Daphne08]

9. Very sobering article.

Our style of living may be quite different in another twenty years, and I haven't decided if that will be a good thing or a bad thing.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how we all adjust to it.

There could be some big problems for folks here in California. This place was built on the culture of the automobile.

Everything is so spread out.

[donsu]

25. reports say that when gas goes to $4 a gal., hell will happen

first to rural and outer burbs and then snowballing to all of us.

[amandabeech]

26. I don't think that our world will disintegrate at $4 a gallon.

Gasoline was at the equivalent of $3 a gallon in the early 1980s, and it was not pleasant.

Judging by those years, here's what will happen:

People will drive less. They'll organize their errands much more efficiently, and maybe ask a nearby friend or neighbor if they would like to come along. Families will take vacations closer to home. Carpools and ride shares will become more common, and the local govs will open up their ride matching services again. Buses and rail cars which are not now full will be, and there will be calls for new ones. Folks will trade in that second vehicle for something small and fuel efficient. Auto plants making small vehicles will run two or three shifts, and other plants will change over to small vehicles. The automakers will ask for regulatory relief so that they can import small cars made overseas that do not meet U.S. safety or emissions standards. VW will open a U.S. plant to make TDI diesels. More Prius owners will convert their cars for an optional plug-in.

More people will walk or bicycle, and will become militant about their rights. Motorcycles will become much more popular, especially in areas of the country with warm and relatively dry climates.

Weatherproofing housing will be the next big thing, especially for those heating with oil. Congresscritters will face pressure from home to provide tax benefits for the middle class and money for the poor to weatherproof, too.

Food will be more expensive, particularly fruits and vegetables trucked in from far away, so vegetable gardening will become more popular. Homeowner associations in moderately priced neighborhoods will be forced to change their charters. People will plant fruit trees in their backyards.

And yes, those exurbs will not be nearly as popular. People in rural areas will patronize those local businesses still left in town, like the local TruValue or Ace, instead of heading for Wally World. They will rarely travel to the nearest city alone, especially seniors.

However, as gas and diesel prices climb, things will become more difficult.

[donsu]

32. $3 dollars is not $4 dollars - rural means food - gas moves food -

burbs mean people will move closer in to their jobs. housing market affected, etc., etc., etc.

[shanti]

45. many communities in california

have light rail - san diego, sacramento, la, san jose, and of course BART in the bay area. they are underutilized, but this may soon change!

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dbt]

13. ausiedownunderground makes a point or two here!

Ten years ago, I got to travel to England and Ireland. It does not take much reading of the newspapers or watching REAL NEWS ON TV (try to get your mind around THAT) for an American to realize that (gasp!) the United States is NOT the Center of the Universe. I can only imagine how we've declined in the eyes of the world since bu$hler began wagging his micropenis in everyone's face!

We do actually believe that the world owes us a living.

:freak:

[mojavekid]

28. I was in Ireland 9 years ago and went back this last March,

I was SHOCKED at how "Americanized" Dublin had become. We stayed with an old (Irish) friend there and went out to Donegal for a week, but it seemed we could not escape the new construction, all being built around the Automobile. In Dublin, the new housing tracks that now run up the hills and down across the valleys, have VERY little infrastructure, lacking in the basics such as service stations, strip malls and even schools, forcing the families to drive everywhere...sounds familiar no?

[trogdor]

15. depressing.

Of course, the "solution" would be to adopt the Bush energy plan, but who's going to pay for the new refining capacity? The article suggests that the gas companies don't want to pay for it. Most likely we the taxpayers will be asked to pay. That's crap. I'd rather go back to the horse and buggy.

[Coastie for Truth]

16. No incentive to build more refineries

1. Their "ROI" or their years to "recover their investment" stretches out into the "unknown era" of actual "peak oil" and tar sands and oil shale and biofuels and Fischer Tropsch coal fuels. And the new refineries built today will be useless for that next era.

-Chemical Engineering Economics 101

2. Right now they are "maximizing profit" at "low risk" - and new refineries will be "high risk" for the reasons stated in paragraph 1.

-MBA Business Models 101

This could be why Bush proposed the Government building the refineries (on abandoned military bases) - it's called

PRIVATIZE PROFITS
--- SOCIALIZE RISKS

[leesa]

17. What garbage! As though it's the lack of pricey refineries that is

keeping prices high. Sounds like Cheney-speak.

[warrior1]

18. fuckers

should have listen to all of the green people. Like Pres. Carter, Pres. Al Gore.

fuckers

[Hobarticus]

19. We're addicted to oil, time for some tough love...$5 a gallon, today.

Hey, it'll suck, but I guaran-fucking-tee that you'll see SUVs dry up, and you'll see greater calls for higher-MPG cars, at a price that everybody can afford,and you'll see alternative energy get the priority it deserves.

Detroit can do it, they just have no incentive. But get a few hundred million screaming at their Congressmen to do something...

Until we can wean ourselves off the petro-tit, one way or the other, we're on borrowed time.

[radwriter0555]

20. Oh yeah? Then why does SHELL OIL CO keeping shutting down "WILDLY

PROFITABLE" wells and refineries in California?

Dave McGowan puts forth, (with permission)

On June 21, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that the ever-growing 'Peak Oil' crowd seems to have missed. The article concerned the Shell oil refinery in Bakersfield, California that is scheduled to be shut down on October 1 -- despite the fact that the state of California (and the nation as a whole) is already woefully lacking in refinery capacity.

Now why do you suppose that Shell would want to close a perfectly good oil refinery? It can't be because there is no market for the goods produced there, since that obviously isn't the case. And it isn't due to a lack of raw materials, since the refinery sits, as the Times noted, atop "prolific oil fields." The Scotsman recently explained just how prolific those fields are:

The best estimates in 1942 indicated that the Kern River field in California had just 54 million barrels of remaining oil. By 1986, the field had produced 736 million barrels, and estimates put the remaining reserves at 970 million barrels. (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=578462004)

Of course, just because there is a strong demand for a product, and a ready source of raw materials with which to produce that product, does not mean that any corporate entity is obligated to bring that product to market. In the corporate world, the only thing that ever matters is the "bottom line," because corporations exist for one purpose only: to generate profits. So the only question, I suppose, that really matters, is: can the refining of gasoline and diesel fuel at this particular facility generate profits for the corporation?


One would naturally assume, given Shell's decision to close the refinery, that the answer to that question is "no." But that would be an entirely wrong assumption, since the truth is, as L.A. Times reporters discovered when they got their hands on internal company documents, that the refinery is wildly profitable. How wildly profitable? The Bakersfield plant's "profit of $11 million in May <2004> was 57 times what the company projected and more than double what it made in all of 2003." (Elizabeth Douglas "Shell to Cut Summer Output at Bakersfield Refinery, Papers Say," Los Angeles Times, June 21, 2004)

Go ahead and read that again: "more than double what it made in all of 2003." In a single month! And 2003 wasn't exactly what you would call a slow year at the Bakersfield refinery. According to Shell documents obtained by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, "Bakersfield's refining margin at $23.01 per barrel, or about 55 cents profit per gallon, topped all of Shell's refineries in the nation."
(http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=114-04062004)


http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html

[Turbineguy]

22. Check this:

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/nw/nw004816.php3

[Viva_La_Revolution]

24. are they....

Closing the wells for now, to re-open them in the future when the price is even higher...or closing them to keep their profits low enough so they will continue to be eligible for corporate welfare...or both? :shrug:

[loudsue]

47. They're reducing the supply -- creating a shortage -- to keep

the prices high...and the profits even higher!

They're hoarding it to increase profits...demand obviously won't go away, so they will also surely make a greater profit from it later.

:kick::kick::kick:

[are_we_united_yet]

21. US Auto Manufacturer marketing team solution: 4-cylinder Humvees

With a fuel efficient 5 speed overdrive transmission.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Conservativesux]

29. They wont. For the first time ever gas prices didnt ramp up before....

....the Memorial day weekend.

* and his cronies are holding the bad news til after the 2006 elections.

Its Peak Oil time baby, and when it hits for real, millions of people will be out of a job.

[wallwriter]

30. Why not look for ways to use less oil

instead of presuming that cheap oil is our birthright. Available solutions--biodiesel, fuel cells, increased efficiency, public transportation, WALKING--are all imperfect, but, taken together, couuld go a long way toward alleviating the problem.

[depakid]

31. "High investment costs and low profits"

are NOT what's "discouraged" the constuction of new refineries- it's the knowledge that crude supplies will be ever more limited in the future.

The oil companies are well aware of the implications of global peak oil, even if this seemingly well versed reporter isn't.

[KeepItReal]

33. So *that* explains all those huge lines at all the gas stations?

Oh wait, there *ARE NO HUGE LINES AT GAS STATIONS*.

If these fools were not meeting the demand, we would se shortages of gas at the station. That ain't happening.

Try another excuse for price gouging...

[rockedthevoteinMA]

35. can someone explain to me why diesel is more expensive than

gasoline? I don't get it... I thought diesel was less refined, therefore cheaper? :shrug: It's at least thrity cents more a gallon in the northeast.

[Conservativesux]

54. In the late 1960's Diesel was .18 cents/Gal. and Gasoline about .30cts...

...Then people started buying Mercedes-Benz diesel engine cars (Hey Janice!) and the price and taxes on Diesel went up from there.

You are correct too. Kerosene, Diesel, Jet Fuel A and other distillates are cheaper to refine then gasoline.

Its just a big rip-off, like always, with the oil companies and the gubberment luaghing all the way to the bank.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

55. Thank you Conservativesux. It was driving me crazy. n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

36. The oil is being stockpiled for the next big military push....

...which should come rather soon.

That will also push prices upward.

[Robeson]

39. We need to build more Hummers!!!!.....

...that will take care of everything!

:sarcasm:

[indepat]

41. Gee, ain't it a shame demand could not have been better anticipated

and more refineries built, but that might have dampened industry profits.

[Mika]

56. "High investment costs and low profits"? WTF?

High investment costs and low profits have discouraged the building of any new U.S. refineries since 1976.

Hogwash. Big Oil has posted ever larger quarterly profits for the last ten years.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

57. this is total BS ...a GOP talking point to push cheney's energy rape bill