A Simple Fact: Demand For Gasoline Is Down, Yet Prices Are Going Up Why Doesn't The Right's Little Chart Apply?

Well lets see, a 1902 plant being closed by Sunoco Why? Because it is old and Sunoco doesn't want to upgrade it to modern standards. Seems to me that is a business decision on Sunoco NOT a political decision. Same with their other plant. Sounds to me like they want out of the refining business and no one wants to take over their delapidated plants. I wonder why? Do some research and you'll find that these plants have had more accidents than any two plants any place else in the nation and have failed their last thee EPA inspections. Typical of big business today. Run it into the ground and walk away.

Conoco Trainer plant is also idle, Wonder why there too? Same thing EPA inspection failures and Conoco is unwilling to upgrade the plant. "In a statement, Houston-based ConocoPhillips said it decided to sell the Trainer complex because of the "level of investment required to remain competitive." In addition, the company has been evaluating all of its refineries under a plan to reduce its refining capacity."

Seems to me American petroleum companies have decided that refining oil for North America isn't their cup of tea anymore. YEP use it up, don't maintain it and throw it away. Sounds a lot like a Bain Capitol attitude, buy it suck it dry and throw it away.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/...
Watch sports videos you won't find anywhere else

yes, I read the Daily News and Inquirer everyday, so unlike your selective article source, there has been coverage of this topic broadly both in favor and in opposition of the closures.
I see you are familiar with EPA's involvement, thanks for bringing that up.

Surely you are aware of the fact that the Philadelphia plant has been upgraded throughout it's history (installed new equipment as recently as November) and has all requirements necessary to operate (i.e. wet gas scrubber et al)
Surely you've read of the hoops and red tape the plants needed for the EPA to approve their purchases of both sweet and sour crude?
Why? To reduce capacity.

The reason for the closure is because a refinery has both a minimum and maximum capacity for safety purposes. When the plant cannot purchase enough crude to operate at minimum capacity it becomes an unsafe and unstable environment.
Even the 4 billion dollar bride presented by the administration to keep it operating was not enough to prevent the loss of 15,000 jobs within 12 miles in 6 months during an election year.

It is interesting that you pretend this is a single company or local problem. Perhaps you'd like to address the same situation occuring on the west coast, St Lucia, France, Italy Australia, etc???

Here is some food for thought:

http://blog.gasbuddy.com/post...
http://blog.gasbuddy.com/post...

The impending crisis is governed by two items.

1. Protection of our own assets for stabilizing our own economy .

2. Our conversion from petroleum products to produce energy to renewable sources of energy.

THOSE are our first and primary reasons to NOT ship refined products over seas nor raw crude.

The West coast refineries are located in three major area. Long Beach, Santa Barbara and Richmond -- California. The far more frightening thing that this country has to face is that these three areas ALL are located over major earthquake fault systems.

http://www.theodora.com/pipel...



http://www.quake.ca.gov/gmaps...

IF the Hayward Fault in NorCal were to rupture in its predicted 7.6 quake the plants in Richmond would be completely out of service for YEARS.

If the ANY of the three faults located under rupture like one did in 1933 the refineries there would be out of service for YEARS. My mother was in this one. She said it took almost 4 years to bring the two refineries back on line. And they didn't give a damn about EPA stuff then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

IF the series of faults under Santa Barbara rupture like the one in 1925 Again, it would take years to bring them back on line. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ea...

Moving to Texas and the refineries there. As we saw with the damage done by hurricane Katrina, the Texas refineries did not come back online for 34 months for the last and largest one.

North to Oklahoma, There are 30+ Known faults in Oklahoma. It is not a quite state earthquake wise either.
http://www.ogs.ou.edu/earthqu...

Overall and far more important to our countries future energy recourses is the creation of alternate energy sources that will take the place of our dependence upon OIL.

In addition to these treats to the stability of our very fragile earths crust we have global warming to contend with. But unlike many other people I am certain we can survive a higher temperature without too much problem. My much larger concern is the ice melt off Greenland.

http://www.scientificamerican...

And it is not because of rising ocean levels, although predictions would put Houston underwater and New Orleans too. My very large concern is with the Earths crust and the sudden (geologically speaking) removal of 683,751 cu mi weighing 5.9589 E+18 pounds (147,197,952,000 x 59.2 x 683,751:cubic feet in a cubic mile x weight per cubic foot of ice x cubic miles of ice on Greenland. )

I can't even tell you what or how to say that number, but it is enough to deform the crust of the earth by its shear weight. There are two factors built into this.
1. Within the next 25 years enough ice melt will have taken place to allow the 6 major volcanoes which are under this ice capping of Greenland to begin erupting again at far more regular intervals.
2, The release of the ice melt will allow the crust to neutralize back to its original shape before the 100,000 year old ice cap formed. The neutralization process with affect other areas around the planet. ESPECIALLY the North American Continent. The New Madrid fault going right up the middle of the continent.

http://www.scchealth.org/docs...

The New Madrid fault can be likened to a crack in an asphalt road with a tree root growing under it. The internal pressures of the fluctuations of the continent will be affected by the release of pressure from the Greenland island/continent. The earthquake activity through out the planet from this ice melt will make the last 300 years of activity look like a hiccup too what is to come.

Again, the absolute need to become totally energy independent of foreign sources and even our own petroleum. In reality natural gas isn't even a good alternative.

But of course our planets goverments can't see past the ends of their own noses and those that have to satisfy their immediate greed don't really give a damn. There is FAR MORE important things for the survival of our species a foot than the fighting over oil capacity and who's going to make what.

I hope you now see a much larger picture to our survival as a species.