I don't care where they build 'em, just do something somewhere.

Here's a link to what I was talking about.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.oilcity.fortune/index.html

It's FREAKING HUGE!!!

The part that strikes a nerve with me is that the people who CAN do something about it, dont give a hoot about whats going on. I hear that part of the problem is that we cannot refine it fast enough. Why not? This is America people....BUILD MORE REFINERIES! A news report said that we've not built any new refineries in what 30+ years??? Why not???

Looks like Uncle Sam would be willing to cut Exxon or whoever a tax break (like they need a tax break posting multi-billion dollar profits PER QUARTER) for them building a few more refineries.

SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE!!

Agreed It's common sense IMO

As for the farmers mentioned in this thread.  I say good for them they deserve every penny they get.    About time they get something for there hard work.      

BUILD MORE REFINERIES!

Why build them here?  A refinery in India is being doubled in size to provide 5% of the worldwide demand of gasoline.  Why import oil and then refine it here when we can just import the product that we want (gasoline)?

why pay a middle man? wouldn't we be able to have lower prices by buying unrefined and do it ourselves instead of paying others to do it for us?

BUILD MORE REFINERIES!

Why build them here?  A refinery in India is being doubled in size to provide 5% of the worldwide demand of gasoline.  Why import oil and then refine it here when we can just import the product that we want (gasoline)?

why pay a middle man? wouldn't we be able to have lower prices by buying unrefined and do it ourselves instead of paying others to do it for us?

Depends on the price of labor and the cost of running the refinery. With the cheap international labor from a financial standpoint it can make alot of sense to pay the middle man. No upfront cost to build and maybe still getting it cheaper then if we did it on our own. Welcome to the world of outsourcing.  :-/

why pay a middle man? wouldn't we be able to have lower prices by buying unrefined and do it ourselves instead of paying others to do it for us?

It would probably end up costing us more.  We would already have to ship the crude here and since there is waste in the crude we'd be shipping more gallons of crude then we would end up with gas.  Then it would also cost more to refine it here then it would to refine it in India.  The labor costs would be significantly less there.

So, in essence it would probably save us money.

Now it definately wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for us to ship our crude to India, refine it, and then ship it back.  That would cost us more.  But we have ample refining supply to handle our domestic production.

why pay a middle man? wouldn't we be able to have lower prices by buying unrefined and do it ourselves instead of paying others to do it for us?

It would probably end up costing us more.  We would already have to ship the crude here and since there is waste in the crude we'd be shipping more gallons of crude then we would end up with gas.  Then it would also cost more to refine it here then it would to refine it in India.  The labor costs would be significantly less there.

So, in essence it would probably save us money.

Now it definately wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for us to ship our crude to India, refine it, and then ship it back.  That would cost us more.  But we have ample refining supply to handle our domestic production.

yeah, i suppose that makes sense. I didn't think about the lower costs of labor in foreign countries.

yeah, i suppose that makes sense. I didn't think about the lower costs of labor in foreign countries.

One other thing that I failed to cover in my previous post is that the price of gas is set on the NYMEX futures market.  The actual refining cost has no direct bearing on the cost of gasoline.  That cost is driven solely by the commodity market.

Now the refiners do make refining decisions based upon the cracking spread of the price of oil compared to the price of gas to see if they can make money by producing gas.  If that spread is too low then the refineries will produce less gas, which will drive up the price because the supply is being limited.

Hopefully, that makes sense to someone other than me.  

The part that strikes a nerve with me is that the people who CAN do something about it, dont give a hoot about whats going on. I hear that part of the problem is that we cannot refine it fast enough. Why not? This is America people....BUILD MORE REFINERIES! A news report said that we've not built any new refineries in what 30+ years??? Why not???

Tree huggers and the "Not -In-My-Backyarders"

Oh, EPA regs have had a lot to do with why we haven't built any.

And limited refining capacity keeps the price up, so why bother?

You know I have actually learned to just deal with the gas prices.  I know thats not the attitude to really have but what can I possably to about it.   I'm just one guy and his family living in Podunk Ky and there isn't much that I can do but keep on going on and suck it up.   It's obvious that the gov dosen't much care and no matter how much I complain and get upset with it, the price just keeps going up.  I'm not going to let it irritate me anymore.