Here's one more iteration of government policies having impacts that the political smart set can't seem to anticipate. But guess who will be vilified?
With Congress and the White House pushing to increases the use of ethanol, the oil industry is scaling back its plans to expand refineries — which could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come....Posted by Alan at June 17, 2007 11:17 AMOnly last year, the Energy Department was told that refiners, reaping big profits and anticipating growing demand, were looking at boosting their refining capacity by 1.6 million barrels a day, a roughly 10 percent increase.
But oil companies already have scaled those expansion plans back by nearly 40 percent. More cancelations are expected if Congress passes legislation now before the Sensate calling for 15 billion gallons of ethanol use by 2015 and more than double that by 2022, say industry and government officials.
"These (expansion) decisions are being revisited in boardrooms across the refining sector," says Charlie Drevna, executive vice president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.