Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
"Refining capacity here really hasn't been boosted in the past 20 years... thats part of why the price of fuel doesn't mimic the price of crude oil."
And why would you increase the capacity? Even though the demand has obviously outgrown the production there is no onus on the oil industry to increase capacity; you just raise prices.
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But it's a free market, so anyone can step in and build a refinery. The customers would like it, and frankly the producers would like it to. So why hasn't anyone?
For the longest time, it was an ugly business, there has been some growth lately in North American capacity (largely to recieve Canadian heavy sour) but even now the prospect of refining in the long run isn't that great. Despite what their margins, or cracks are on May 16th, 2007.