Oil

[BigPapaKain]

(05-31-2022, 10:24 AM)grampahol Wrote: I haven't read this entire thread..I probably will later, but something to add.. In politics for your average idiot voter in the US presidents don't set oil prices and they have almost zero responsibility for the price going up or down short of declaring WWIII and sending it all to military uses.. That still might happen, but I kind of doubt it.. I've been waiting for WWIII my entire life, but the world has drastically changed since WWII..You can thank the makers of your locally produced and operated nuclear bomb for that.. <--sarcastic take on such foolishness)
Oil prices are set on the global stage by the long line of people and corporations in the post by Stewy way back on page 1.. 
The release of the 'strategic oil reserves' in the US is intended for a domestic audience of dumb voters to help prevent panic buying and hording..It doesn't affect the price of gasoline short nor long term. It's a feel good gesture at best..
They don't mention the oil producers that go out of business and sell of their assets when prices tank nor that refineries for the most part are set up to refine certain types of oil. Some refineries shut down production, some don't and  getting them back online is a long term investment. Oil types are not all the same. You don't refine tar sands oil in the same refineries that refine sweet crude..  Those kinds of refineries are hard to find and I'm not sure there are ANY in Texas though I could be wrong on that part. Tar sands pipeline was a joke.. It sold to dumb voters...not to mention there's only a very limited amount of it in one small section of Canada..
Short answer there is no red telephone on Biden's desk that lowers nor raises the price of gasoline at the pump..Never was and never will be.. 

I work at a refinery and can confirm everything said here about refineries in general.

You'd be surprised at how fragile the damn things are. You hit the wrong control valve and the whole place goes down. HARD. Hell even planned shut downs take awhile to get single units back up and running.

Last time we had a full oil out, it was about a month and a half before the whole refinery was back up and running, and even then it was another 3 weeks before it was all considered stabilized. THAT WAS A PLANNED SHUT DOWN. Imagine the havoc covid ran on smaller refineries who decided to shut down suddenly and wait it all out. Oof.