[Land-speed] No new Refineries

joseph lance jolylance at earthlink.net
Tue Jul 22 13:21:43 MDT 2008


This thread raises some thoughts:

If existing refineries are capable of meeting the present demand for oil 
products and gasoline and we consider the following over the next 20 years:

--- the government is mandating increases in replacement ethanol and 
biofuels

--- conservation due to price is reducing demand

--- over that 20 year span, we'll see plug-in hybrids and maybe fully 
electric cars

--- natural gas could replace some gasoline as a transportation fuel (the 
Boone Pickens scheme)

Given all of the above, how can an oil company justify a brand new ~ $1 
billion investment in a new refinery to their shareholders when that 
investment is probably a looser ?

The occasional talk about nationalizing refineries reminds me of another 
Rickover experience--at one point the government / congress insisted that 
Rickover build a nuke sub in a government shipyard instead of the usual 
privately owned shipyards. The result was the Thresher which sunk during 
it's sea trials and killed Navy and Westinghouse people due to defects in 
the silver soldering of the condenser cooling water pipe joints.

Lance

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Auguston" <jauguston at msn.com>
To: <land-speed at autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 1:23 PM
Subject: [Land-speed] No new Refineries


>I am a lurker here but I have to comment on the often said story that there
> haven't been any new refineries built for (fill in a number) years.
>
> I worked as a construction crane operator for 40+ years and spent a lot of
> those years working in the four refineries here in Northwest Washington.
>
> Each of those refineries are refining approximately four times the number 
> of
> barrels of crude oil per day as they did when they were built. There is 
> the
> equivalent of 12 new refineries inside those four. Not new 
> locations-true-but
> new refining capacity.
>
> Jim


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