9/26/2005

Oil Refining: Minimal Damages from Rita

Many news articles are stating that because of a shift in hurricane Rita's pattern from a direct line into Huston with a movement more towards the eastern portion of Texas, our nation has been saved from another massive increase in gas prices. The United States Coast Guard preformed and aerial assessment of the refiners in the gulf and determined that there was no severe damage done to the refineries. According to the MSNBC article by John Schoen the longest period of any refinery being shut down is one month and many of the others will be up in running in less than two weeks. Even thought the refineries will return to normal production soon there is still predicted to be a slight increase in gas prices once again for a short period of time. Bush stated that more oil reserves can be released if needed and I hope that all measures are taken to lower gas prices or keep them the same as what they are currently until the impacts of Rita are reconciled.

2 comments:

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Dr. Tufte said...

-2 on Tyler's post for multiple spelling errors.

-1 on Nate's comment for a spelling error.

-1 on Ethan's comment for poor grammar.

Also Tyler, could you make the link more informative - like have something about oil prices in the link itself?

The point that many people in the media are getting close to, but haven't hit on well yet, is that oil prices didn't used to be sensitive to hurricanes. They are now because we've pushed that industry to its limit.

Bob is off a bit. Gas prices are higher than they've ever been in nominal terms. In real terms, they are only now after the hurricane and the run-up of the last two years approaching all times highs.

Nate is offbase too. Taxes haven't changed recently, so they can't explain the run-up in gas prices. Of course, that isn't the same thing as us all wanting the taxes to be lower.