WILLisms.com: Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 178 -- Refineries.

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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 178 -- Refineries.

Refineries In America-

The Gulf Coast oil refineries were largely unscathed after Rita, thank goodness.

...there are 21 refineries, making up 27.5 percent of the domestic refining capacity, between Lake Charles, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas.
U.S. Refineries are heavily concentrated along the Gulf Coast for a number of reasons, a primary one being that 29% of domestic oil production occurs in the region.

So where is the rest of the refining in America?

United States Refinery Capacity by State (barrels per day)
Alabama: 130,200 bpd
Alaska: 375,900 bpd
Arkansas: 76,800 bpd
California: 2,090,401 bpd
*Los Angeles: 1,433,300 bpd
*San Francisco: 541,801 bpd
*Bakersfield: 115,300 bpd
Colorado: 87,000 bpd
Delaware: 175,000 bpd
Georgia: 28,000 bpd
Hawaii: 147,500 bpd
Illinois: 896,000 bpd
Indiana: 433,000 bpd
Kansas: 296,200 bpd
Kentucky: 227,500 bpd
Louisiana: 2,945,800 bpd
*New Orleans: 1,305,000 bpd
*Baton Rouge: 882,500 bpd
*Lake Charles: 702,000 bpd
Michigan: 74,000 bpd
Minnesota: 335,000 bpd
Mississippi: 364,800 bpd
Montana: 181,200 bpd
Nevada: 1,700 bpd
New Jersey: 728,000 bpd
New Mexico: 117,800 bpd
North Dakota: 58,000 bpd
Ohio: 551,400 bpd
Oklahoma: 474,000 bpd
Pennsylvania: 770,000 bpd
Tennessee: 180,000 bpd
Texas: 4,609,500 bpd
*Houston: 2,291,900 bpd
*Port Arthur: 1,122,000 bpd
*Corpus Christi: 676,000 bpd
Utah: 163,600 bpd
Virginia: 58,600 bpd
Washington: 609,000 bpd
West Virginia: 19,400 bpd
Wisconsin: 33,000 bpd
Wyoming: 152,000 bpd

Source:
Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Senate (.pdf).

First, the bad news on refineries: it has been 29 years since the last refinery was built in the United States.

Now, the good news: the existing refineries have become more efficient. But there's still a need for more refining capacity in this country. It's a national security issue:

There were 325 oil refineries in the U.S. in 1981, only 149 today. Since 1976, domestic refining capacity dropped from 18.6 million barrels of oil a day to 16.8 million barrels of oil today.

Part of why there have been no new refineries are NIMBYism and environmentalism. People don't want refineries in their area. And environmental regulations have strangled the incentives for building these exceedingly expensive new plants.

A large oil refinery costs $4 billion to $6 billion to build. This is not something to be taken lightly, especially in such a cyclical boom-and-bust industry.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Remarkably Awesome Houston Evacuation.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2005 09:04 AM

Comments

KATRINA AND RITA PROVE OFF-SHORE OIL-DRILLING IS CLEAN AND SAFE

There were NO MAJOR oil spills as a result of platforms being hit by Category 5 winds.

ZERO.

Therefore, the enviro-nuts - who have been preventing the expansion of off-shore oil-drilling in the Gulf, (mostly off the coast of Florida) - should just SHUT UP, SPLIT and take their alarmist falsehoods with them!

ALSO: there were NO enviromental disasters as a result of any REFINERIES being hit by the Category 5 storms.

ZERO.

Therefore, we should build more refineries on the Gulf Coast (and elsewhere).

If we had more oil-platforms in the Gulf, them we'd have MORE OIL.

If we had more refinieries then we'd have more gasoline.

AND PRICES WOULD COME DOWN.

High energy prices most adversely effect the poor.

If Democrats and Lefties REALLY want to help the poor, then they'd PUSH for more off-shore oil-drilling in the Gulf and more refineries everywhere.

I believe that the Left will never support more drilling or more refineries in the USA because the Left's IRRATIONAL belief in the possibility of the existence of a "pristine environment" trumps their PHONY advocacy for the poor.

ONLY if they come out for more off-shore oil-drilling and more refineries can they can prove me wrong.

BTW: Jeb Bush ought to show some courage and stop preventing more drilling off the coast of Florida.

There are HUGE oil deposits there, and the USA needs them.

Jeb Bush has been playing state-politics with this issue - he needs the votes of people who THINK that off-shore oil-drilling is unsafe (and is therefore a threat to Florida's tourist industry -- because they feel that it will lead to oil-spills which would damage their beaches.)

Katrina and Rita PROVE this is an unfounded and irrational fear.

MORE DRILLING AND MORE REFINING MUST BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF ANY RATIONAL NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY.

Posted by: reliapundit at September 27, 2005 09:36 AM

Yes we need more refineries but we also need more nuclear reactors. How long has it been since we built one of those? 30 years?

There is a google maps mash-up showing oil refinies in the US at
http://www.clocations.com/cmap.aspx
It can only show 30 refineries at a time so you'll need to center the map on an area to view.

Posted by: Dale at September 27, 2005 10:40 AM

Drilling of oil wells off the coast of florida is, I agree, a very good idea. However, we we were fed the idea that the Alaska Pipeline would end dependency on foreign oil. All it has done so far is create a new and lucrative stop for foreign oil tankers to haul our precious oil away to foreign markets. Hardly any of that oil is refined here in the USA for our use. I fear the same lie will come true for any drilling off the coast of florida. Make the oil companies build the refineries to refine our Gulf oil first then we will allow them to drill our waters.

Posted by: C M at October 1, 2005 08:29 AM