im not sure were you get those numbers from? the gov. says refinery capacity is down, the oil companies say it is down, the refiners themselve say they don t have enough capacity, and no new refineries have been built , so even if there was expansion to the existing refineries, it could not have kept up with the rise in demand!!
The numbers come from the US government, the Energy Information Administration, part of the Department of Energy. They also come from BP, one of the major oil companies.
There was a refinery problem in the US following Katrina and the explosion at a BP refinery. Those were both short term factors. US refineries now have a fair bit of excess capacity.
also why are they not pumping the oil out of the new wells being drilled every day in the mid west?
I should think they are. Mid West oil production fell from its high point in the mid 80s until 2004. Since then it has risen year on year:
2004 - 159 million barrels
2005 - 162
2006 - 167
2007 - 172
because they have no place too go with it!
That would be a bit odd as US refineries have 3 times the capacity necessary to refine all domestic production.
! it is cheaper to by foriegn oil and have it refined on its way here than too ship ours there, refined and returned !
Probably, but that's not what's happening. The US is buying foreign oil because it produces about a third of what it needs. If you have to import oil, importing some of it as finished product makes sense, especially as European refineries produce more gasoline than they require, due to the widespread use of diesel cars in Europe.
why else would gas in saudi be .15 cents a gallon? because it is refined at the source!
No, gasoline is cheap in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi government subsidises it. Just the cost of the crude oil to produce a gallon of gasoline cost about $2.90 at the moment.
venezuela is another place were gas cost's a lot less, because it is refined there as it is produced!
No, again it's cheap because it's subsidised. That's one of the problems that's causing oil prices to rise so much. Countries like Venezuela, Saudi and Iran are booming because they are getting so much more for their oil. At the same time, their citizens are not paying the full price for oil, so their oil consumption is rising rapidly. That means these countries have less oil to export.
the cost of producing gas from oil has not risen that much,
No, it hasn't. Unfortunately the cost of the raw materials has gone up tremendously.
Enough crude oil to make a gallon of gasoline costs about $2.90. Refining it, transporting it and selling it costs about 43c, including the profits. The state and federal government take about 47c in taxes. That's where the $3.80 goes.
It's nothing to do with refining, it's purely down to the price of crude oil
i also dont understand why you seem to be against building new refineries??they would have too meet strictor standards than the old ones,, they would operate at lower output levels therby being much safer!
They'd cost more. Oil refineries cost a lot of money to run. They have large capital costs. For maximum efficiency you need to keep the refineries fully utilised. The more spare capacity you have, the more you pay for gasoline.
and because of redundincy there would be less fluctuation in the price of gas when there was a problem
example; 50 refineries in operation, one goes down, less impact than 28 refineries and one goes down
There isn't really a problem now. The US had a problem with Katrina, but that was an extreme event. Remember, you have to import oil anyway, importing finished gasoline isn't really any more difficult.
