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Refineries

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Geronimo4497

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 19, 2004
Posts
591
So, where are the major Jet and 100LL refineries in the US? I would imagine that if over, say, 20% of our refining capacity WAS in the Gulf states, that we are ALL going to be in a world of hurt. Would this mean the shutdown of the smaller corporate flight departments. I can just imagine what is going through the minds of the owners of the mom and pop flight schools right now. I don’t think that this is going to be pretty, for any of us.
 
It was reported that Bush has released oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve but that that move did not cause prices of gasoline to lower and it also hasn't stopped the prices from rising.

What's the deal?
 
Uh, you can have all of the oil in the world, but without any refining capacity you're SOL. With about 20 percent of our refinery capacity currently down, demand will surely outstrip supply to the point where you'll see fuel shortages, a la early 1970s.
 
AeroBoy said:
Uh, you can have all of the oil in the world, but without any refining capacity you're SOL. With about 20 percent of our refinery capacity currently down, demand will surely outstrip supply to the point where you'll see fuel shortages, a la early 1970s.

I should have finished my thought...

Oil companies have been clamoring that they need oil from the reserves released, that by doing that, prices wouldn't continue to rise.
I was in the same boat you are, thinking that they need more refining capacity.

The only thing that I can think of is that the refineries that are still operable are not able to produce their maximum output b/c they don't have enough crude oil coming in on a daily basis. If that's the case though, and the refineries are now able to get maximum input to produce maximum output (back to the same levels as they were before Katrina), why haven't prices stabilized?
 
I once heard that only 6 refineries in the U.S. produce 100LL.

As stated before, plenty of crude supply, not enough refining capacity.

Just my 2 cents worth...
 
When Sir Richard Branson talks of having to open his own refinery to keep jet fuel prices down for Virgin Atlantic, you know something's wrong with the refinery picture. Linky
 
Refineries prior to Katrina were already near maximum output capacity, I believe in the upper 90th percentile. Now 50% of the refinies on the Gulf Coast are out, so overal capacity is down about 20% for the whole US. There is no way the remaining refineries can cover that shortage, so the extra oil will not help. The oil inventory will increase, but the gasoline inventories will drop quickly.


Imagine if you have a factory producing at 98%, with enough raw materials, half your factory burns down, but your raw materials are untouched. You still can only put out half the final product, even though you have excess parts. That's the situation here.
 
Correct, we could have a sea of crude oil but it is worthless without the ablility to refine it. Right now at least eight refineries in the LA/MS area are offline, in addition, even if it could be refined they would be very limited in how it could be transported. A major pipeline carrying refined products (including jet fuel) that runs from South Louisiana is out of comission because there's no power to run the pumps. Several gas stations in central Georgia are already out of gas.
 
does this storm mean that the airlines will FINALLY raise ticket prices and pass some of the fuel headache onto the customer instead of sticking it to their employees?
 
We can all thank the Econuts, the NIMBY crowd, and past affordability of imported refined products for no new refinery construction and VERY limited expansion of existing facilities.

Here are a few good articles.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/conf/pdf/leister.pdf

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/04/toxic/2990832

http://www.theinternetparty.org/commentary/c_s.php?section_type=com&td=20040525000122

From the last article:

"The bad news is that the number of refineries producing petroleum products has dramatically declined. In 1982 there were 301 refineries in the United States producing 6.4 million barrels of gasoline (and seven million barrels of other petroleum products) each day. Twenty years later there were half that number, just 153, but they are more efficient, producing 8.2 million barrels a day of gasoline. But current gasoline consumption is about nine million barrels, so consumption substantially exceeds our domestic refineries' output.


Worse, America built its last oil refinery in 1976, and there are no current plans to build more. Without new refineries the increased volume of gasoline we need each year will have to come from increased imports --by pipeline, truck or marine tanker from Venezuela, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe (no, there are no exporting oil refineries in Arab nations)-- not always an easy thing, particularly in a time of terrorism. The reason no new refineries have been built is the burden of regulation, first on the permitted emissions of any new refinery, and second on gasoline formulation. Existing refineries are now working to comply with 14 new environmental regulations that come into effect this decade."

-- Pete DuPont, Former Delaware Governor
 

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