TWIP this week explains the disconnect between the rise in the price of oil and the rise in the price of gasoline:
The main reason for the surge in gasoline prices over crude oil seems to have been unusually extensive U.S. refinery outages, which also pushed the limits of gasoline import availability. In the face of rising demand for gasoline and distillate products (e.g., diesel fuel and heating oil), supply was not able to keep up, thus drawing product inventories down, while the price differential to crude oil widened.
I don’t understand your quote at all. Petrol prices are lagging *below* crude oil, from the looks of the graphs, not going above.
I was told that refining can be a negative value business at the moment, since there is an effective cap on petrol. Your petrol price graph would seem to support that.
William –
I clipped the full quote. They’re talking about the year as a whole, where there was a runup of more than a dollar a gallon in the price of gasoline over the first part of the year, while the price of oil rose during that same period, as measured per gallon, substantially less.
Do any readers of this blog have practical suggestions about curing the NIMBY problem in oil refineries (or in power generation in general).
For thirty years, I have watched:
“We need more affordable power or energy but not with a plant in my backyard.”
It seems that the high gas prices are partly NIMBY effects.
I would appreciate comments, especially if I do not know what I am talking about. 😉