Why is Bush LENDING oil from the emergency reserves? Gouging at its worst:

[Deja Q]

TAXES have already paid for it.

WE already paid for it.

LENDING it means we are effectively paying double for it. Surely more than double as prices were nowhere near the original price we paid for it.

Or am I wrong?

[Lori Price CLG]

1. Exactamundo! Terrorist Bush doing exactly what we would expect... n/t

[napi21]

2. I still havent heard where it's going to be refined into gas!

The oil industry has been screaming for years that they just don't have the refining capacity. If that's true, releasing raw crude won't matter at all. If this crude gets to the pump, that's proof that the refineries have been lying for years!

Let's see what happens!

[Deja Q]

3. With their profits, why didn't they make more refineries elsewhere?

There are a lot of places suitable for the task...

And you are right; if it is just the refineries knocked out of action, why release from the reserves at all? As part of a ruse to keep the people calmed down, even though nothing will effectively have changed?

[chicagiana]

4. Because ...

... because they wanted us to pay for it.

It was much easier to simply gobble up the subsidies and not do anything since they already had enough refining capacity.

[Skink]

5. I think tankers can't come in to the Mississipi for a variety of reasons..

We need to tap the reserves. But yeah it is already paid for.:wtf:

[napi21]

6. I don't know why they haven't built any new refineries.

I have been hearing there was a shortage of them for a while now. I'm sure some freeper is going to say it's because the environmentalists won't let them!

I really don't know, but I did read that most refineries are built close to where the oil is pumped out of the ground. That's why you see most of them in Houston, right there on the Gulf.

[charlie]

9. Oil depletion allowance

and intangible drilling costs deductions. They're such juicy subsidies that they distort oil economics, causing them to eschew refinery building for the more lucrative drilling and exploration.

[TOhioLiberal]

12. That's exactly the line that...

...'anal cyst' Limbaugh uses. It's the environmentalist wackos that have caused the problem. All the ditto-heads eat that shit up.

[sandnsea]

8. 8.5 million barrels a day

That's what they produce at capacity, despite there being 50% less refineries since the 70's. Oil companies like it that way, maximize profits. Blaming environmentalists for the refinery situation is pure propaganda.

http://www.pcps.org/pdf/FASB_Conditional_ARO_Obligations_ED_TIC.pdf

[Igel]

7. Because they have to replace it.

You buy it, put it in the ground, and then release it.

You can give it away--thereby subsidizing the oil companies, and writing off the 'investment'.

You can sell it at market rates.

You can lend it.

But you have to replace it, and put the same amount back in the ground when the crisis is over. This is one thing the RW bashes Clinton over--he released it, but didn't replenish the reserves back when oil prices were low.

If you gave the stuff away, you have to buy new at whatever market rates are. If you sold it, you still have to buy it at whatever market rates are. If you *lend* it, you don't give a rat's ass about market rates, now or then.

[sandnsea]

10. Sept 2000?

When would he have replaced it?

[Igel]

14. I have no idea. Go ask them. n/t

[Deja Q]

11. It's giving nothing away. Taxpayer dollars already bought it.

And pointless as it's the refineries that are down. Releasing the oil is pointless since it cannot be refined.

[Igel]

13. Probably true. But somewhere I remember reading a percentage of

petroleum that passes through NOLA, and the amount of oil that's refined; it seems that more is imported through there than is refined there. But I recall I didn't trust the source all that much.

Otherwise, I haven't seen any numbers comparing how much oil moves through NOLA, versus how much is refined there.