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Oil Refiners and Oil Prices

Posted on May 13, 2008

Occasionally I've read claims that the lack of refinery capacity was driving up the price of oil. As an example, here is an excerpt from an old Bloomberg article: The shortage of refining capacity worldwide has contributed to the 57 percent rise in oil prices in the past year. Of course the opposite would be true - a lack of refining capacity would keep down the price of oil (because refineries are the demand side of the equation for crude oil), but increase the price of gasoline (refineries are the supply side of the equation for gasoline). Click on graph for larger image.But now the demand f...

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crude , economy , oil , refinery , supply side