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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (26206)	10/7/2003 5:02:41 PM
From: Ed Ajootian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206085

John, With the US economy apparently picking up steam it would seem that gasoline demand would remain high, nothwithstanding lower crude prices. This increased demand would not be able to be met by more imports of gasoline, due to the very restrictive standards for gasoline in the US that will kick in starting in January. Many of the foreign refineries currently exporting gasoline to the US do not have the $$$$ to upgrade their refinery to meet the new US standards. So if crude oil prices go down, IMO it should lead to a perfect storm for the US refiners, where their costs of raw material go down but their selling price of their finished product does not go down nearly as much. Its my understanding that it takes 20 days for a barrel of crude oil to get refined into finished gasoline. I don't believe the crude price decreases that may occur will happen with such speed as to make decreasing prices for crude oil a problem for refiners, especially considering that the refining margins should be increasing while this is going on.