Gas prices in the Midwest could surge from 30 cents to a dollar because of a key refinery shutdown in Indiana.
BP's refinery in Whiting is having problems with its largest crude distillation unit, which handles more than half of the facility's capacity, according to Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com.
The refinery is the seventh largest in the U.S. and biggest in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's website. Its operable capacity is 413,500 barrels per calendar day.
"Almost immediately, market gasoline prices shot up on the concerns of reduced gasoline supply from the BP refinery," DeHaan said in a written statement, estimating a 15- to 30-cent increase. Other analysts said the increase could be up to a dollar per gallon in just a week.
Same thing happened when DDR3 jumped prices a few years ago. Double the prices.
Gas jumps 70 cents today back over $3and I get an E-mail from Anandtech signaling the ban on me has been lifted.Coincidence?There is no such things as coincidences.
don't worry bonzai, we will be on solar and other alternatives almost completely by 2050
Getting down to the simplest truths about it -- all energy on this planet is solar. The energy we're consuming was just created by the sun before it died 200 million years ago.
Over the "long run," we can talk about the "economics of energy" but the physics of energy presents us with a dilemma of staving off the disaster of resource depletion. Even the sun will only last another 3 billion years.
In the economics of supply and demand, Nature only offers the supply of some things with an unlikely chance of "new production," and other things which are only so useful even if they're capable of being produced.
We'll likely revisit nuclear power sources, since newer reactor designs offer smaller, safer options.
Put it another way. If I were running for President, I'd suggest creation of another "NASA-like" organization out of the DoE to make oil partially obsolete. If that wouldn't kill my candidacy immediately, I would find Congress even more deadlocked than it's been during Obama's term. The "industry" wants its short run profits and the "industry" puts money in politicians' pockets. The public wants juice in their tanks. Everyone with a foot on the pedal or major stock ownership in an oil company creates an externality without a sure cost estimate, but it is more likely the future costs are underestimated. And those future costs aren't part of the price at the pump -- but I said that, in a different way I suppose.
When I was a kid, I had a microscope. I'd put some dry straw in a bottle of water and give it sunlight for a couple weeks. There would be all these one-celled animals pursuing their instincts individually, certainly without much "collective action." Eventually, they would die in their own poison and other life-forms would take over, even as the odor would take over the garage where I kept the bottle in the window.
I think . . . . that so much as we're a "paragon of creation," our fate could be similar. If the beetle-infestations, floods, storms, wild-fires and droughts aren't indicative of anything, then wait and see when the extraction costs put the price per gallon at $20. You could hope "the market" will take care of it. But Nature isn't an active market participant. And I'd think that a problem of "addiction" needs some assistance from collective, governmental action. Nationally. And world-wide.
Think about the enormous power of interests disinclined to pursue such a plan.
That's not entirely accurate.
While all the fossil fuel and alternatives are from the sun. Technically geothermal and nuclear came from the previous star that's formed our solar system.
The number of major oil companies producing and selling primarily in the US (but also elsewhere) are less than the number to make a cartel unstable. There is little substitute for their product in transportation. Demand is increasing world-wide.
Refiners usually plan shutdowns for the winter due to lower crack spreads (lower profit) and avoid shutdowns in the summer like the plague. In-fact we have had a couple clients push back summer planned T/A's this year because some crack spreads are quite favorable right now.
We normally see maintenance shutdowns/overhauls in the spring and fall when the refineries change over fuel blends, summer/winter are their peak output times. Most of these maintenance shutdowns are planned 6 to 9 months in advance, in some cases only portions of the plants are shutdown while still producing product at a lower rate of course. The only process that affects the entire refinery is the crude units as with the case now at the BP Indiana refinery.
No effect here, I paid $2.15/gal this morning with my Kroger $0.10/gal discount.
http://www.texasgasprices.com/Shell_Gas_Stations/Richmond/113096/index.aspx
Welcome back, Dave. What did you get, a year?Indiana oil refinery shuts down for maintenance, raising gas prices in midwest
Gas jumps 70 cents today back over $3and I get an E-mail from Anandtech signaling the ban on me has been lifted.Coincidence?There is no such things as coincidences.
Besides the fishing, another good decision for moving here, right? $1.99 down the street from the house.:biggrin:$2.06/gal today, Shell, no discounts necessary.
http://www.greenvillegasprices.com/...SC&area=Anderson&site=Greenville&tme_limit=48
Right about spring/fall, I misspoke about Winter. Regarding 6-9 months you are perhaps speaking from a contractor's perspective and/or finalizing the work scope. Owner planning begins 2-3 years in advance, procurement alone can easily consume 6-9 months on larger replacement items. I've worked on detailed engineered of quite a few units 2-3 years in advance of a T/A.
Yep, it's the worst unit that could have gone down, and it was recently upgraded in 2012 to handle the discounted Canadian crude. Further making the possibility that it was purposely sabotaged to help their competitor's more ludicrous.