India and Jobs and Gas

[ThomWV]

Think about this for a few moments. A lot of jobs that were performed here are now being performed in India, and a lot more are headed that way. That's one thing.

This country seems to hover on the brink of a fuel crisis from one month to the next. Our refinerys operate at greater than 90% of their full capacity virtually all of the time (they ran at about 97% throughout Clinton's years, at about 92% under Bush - a scalping, but that's another matter). Ample supply of crude is rarely a problem but when you see shortages and higher prices its usually because of lack of refinery capacity. For better or worse, depending on your point of view, we have put into effect environmental laws that make it dam near impossible to build an oil refinery anywhere in this country.

Up until a few years ago India, which is an importer of crude oil just like us, also lacked refinery capacity. They also had low demand. That has changed though. With the building of a very large refinery India is now an exporter of finished petroleum products. They take in crude, refine it, and then sell the product, notably gasoline, on the world market.

One of the reason we are able to have the gas prices we do today is because we are able to buy gasoline which we are unable to produce for ourselves on the world market. Tankers arrive daily.

Now the point. Folks, Inida is experiencing an increase in automobiles that outpaces each preceeding year by about 31%. So, ask yourself this, how much longer do you expect they will be exporting finished gasoline when their domestic demand is growing by a third each year.

A week ago Lou Dobbs said something to the effect that we are borrowing money from over seas to finance buying products from over seas. It seems to me that in this case with the hemoraging of jobs we've seen in the last three and a half years you can add to that that we are also exporting our earnings power overseas as well.

But back to the point. So, I wonder where the refinerys of the future will be located? Let's see, what would be requried? First would be ready access to crude, second would be virtually no environmental laws, and third would be an impovershed workforce to build the things on land that could be had for virtually nothing. Once refined you'd need access to the sea, even if by a short pipeline if that could pass through friendly territory. Can you think of any place on earth that meets the criteria?

By the way, in 1992 Iraq may have invaded Kuwait, but in the end who won?

[Mountainman]

1. In Bakersfield the oil companies want to shut down refineries

There is pressure on the oil companies not to shut down refineries here but the oil companies want to do it even though the price of gas it so high.

I really doubt there is a lack of refinery capability rather there is a will on the part of oil companies to keep supplies of gas low.

In the 70's my ex wife's cousin was an engineer for the Chessy railroad system in Lima, Ohio. There was/is a large Standard Oil refinery there. My ex's cousin was assigned to the refinery to move around full tank cars of refined gasoline. The tank cars were being used to store the gas even though there was a shortage.

[IronLionZion]

2. I would push for alternative energy sources

we have to fund research and find something to reduce our dependence on oil. methanol and hydrogen fuel cells sound promising but we'll never know until we do some thorough research. I believe Kerry is pushing for more methanol and ethanol research and usage. Compressed or liquid natural gas is also being used in some places for public transportation and India has cars that run on propane.

[lutherj]

3. Why hasn't refinery capacity been increased over the last 20

years? We've been running at over 90% capacity for 16 years (and probably longer), and any projection shows increased demand for gas into the future, so why hasn't the market geared up to meet demand? The oil companies must have concluded that it's a bad investment.

"Doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"