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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (42488)	8/31/2005 3:39:23 PM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

Because of bush's ineptness and incompetence, we will now join Iraq by adding even more pollutants into the air. I guess the water down there needs some balance. Here's a novel idea. How about the tax relieved oil companies make some concessions for once? Oil Prices Fall, Gasoline Prices Surge Wednesday August 31, 2:59 pm ET By Brad Foss, AP Business Writer Oil Prices Drop, Gasoline Prices Surge As Gasoline Supplies Are Being Rationed to Retailers Crude oil prices fell slightly in jittery trading Wednesday after the U.S. government said it would loan oil to refiners struggling in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to keep production of gasoline and other fuels steady. But wholesale and retail gasoline prices leaped higher nationwide. ADVERTISEMENT Some of the knottiest issues still to be resolved will be restoring electricity to Gulf Coast pipelines and refineries, which are also suffering from flooding that could very well have left critical electric motors submerged. It will be days before a full assessment of the damage can be done, industry officials and analysts said. Meantime, wholesale gasoline suppliers have begun limiting the amount of fuel they sell to retailers in certain markets in order to make sure they do not take delivery of more fuel than they actually need. With retail gasoline prices surging to record highs and motorists facing $3 a gallon at the pump in a growing number of markets, BP PLC said in an e-mail to clients that it is making "pricing decisions with prudence and restraint in the wake of this natural disaster." Light sweet crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 6 cents to $69.75 a barrel, down from an overnight high of $70.65. On Tuesday, oil futures settled at $69.81, the highest closing price on Nymex since trading began in 1983, although still below the inflation-adjusted high of about $90 a barrel that was set in 1980. But October gasoline futures surged by almost 42 cents to $2.89 a gallon on the Nymex. That is almost 75 cents, or 38 percent higher, than they were on Friday. "There's too much uncertainty," said analyst John Kilduff at Fimat USA in New York. While the details were being worked out about how much oil would be loaned from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- and which refiners would receive it -- European nations began considering the release of their own government-controlled stockpiles of gasoline and heating oil, according to officials at the Paris-based International Energy Agency. The officials demanded anonymity because the consultations were confidential. In another attempt to ease the crunch on motor fuel supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would temporarily allow retailers in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi to sell gasoline and diesel that does not meet stringent summer air-quality standards. Gasoline supplies are tightening in these and other states because some major Gulf Coast energy companies, which were already struggling to meet rising demand before Katrina plowed through the region, have been plagued by floods and power outages that have made it impossible to produce and distribute fuel. At least seven Gulf refineries remain out of service, and will be for days if not weeks. Also, several pipelines that carry gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel to other markets are stymied by disruptions to the power grid. The shutdown of a pipeline that carries crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the Midwest has increased the need for Canadian imports, industry officials said. And the shutdown of pipelines that carry various fuels to markets on the East Coast means that more gasoline and diesel will have to be shipped by barge and by truck, according to John Eichberger, director of motor fuels at the National Association of Convenience Stores. "The infrastructure was already strained before the hurricane," said oil analyst Fadel Gheit at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. "The hurricane has made a bad situation worse." The U.S. Minerals Management Service said Tuesday that 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's oil output was out of service, with more than 4.6 million barrels of production lost since Friday. The agency said 88 percent of natural gas output was shut down, resulting in a loss of 25.4 billion cubic feet of lost production since Friday. While the loss of oil is significant, Energyintel analyst Tom Wallin said Katrina would likely have a more serious impact on the nation's supply of natural gas. "Crude oil production could be replaced by a release of barrels from the U.S. strategic reserve," he said. "There is no such safety valve for natural gas." Natural gas futures jumped 35.1 cents to $12.01 per 1,000 cubic feet on Nymex. That is more than double the price from a year ago. Associated Press Writers Steve Quinn in Dallas, George Jahn in Vienna, Austria and En-Lai Yeoh in Singapore contributed to this report.