xchagalx
Oil Industry Denies Tightening Supply To Boost Prices
Skip directly to the full story at http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBLQDLXYUE.html
By JEFF DONN The Associated Press
Published: Nov 26, 2006 in the Tampa Bay Triibune




BAKERSFIELD, CALIF. - You would think it was Texas. Dusty roads crisscross the scrubland toward oil tanks and warehouses. Beefy men talk oil over burritos at lunch. Like grazing herds, oil wells dip nonstop amid the tumbleweed - or even into the asphalt of a parking lot.
That's why the rumor sounded so wrong here in California's lower San Joaquin Valley, where petroleum has gushed up more riches than the entire gold rush. Why would Shell Oil Co. simply close its Bakersfield refinery? Why scrap a profit maker?
The rumor seemed to make no sense. Yet it was true.
The company says it could make more money on other projects. It denies it intended to squeeze the market, as its critics would claim, to drive up gasoline profits at its other refineries in the region.
Whatever the truth in Bakersfield, an Associated Press analysis suggests big oil companies have been crimping supplies in subtler ways across the country for years. Tighter supplies tend to drive up prices.

Let's face it. Oil is worth fighting for until such time as a significant alternative takes over. Oil is a vital artery in the economic viability of this nation. Given that many of us are of the opinion that skyrocketing gasoline prices were a scam arranged without interference by our federal government. It's free enterprise that's the password. Yet when you must have a means to get to work, the hospital, shopping .. there's not much in the way of doing without petrol. You pay the price .. and pay .. and pay some more. Jawboning by our President wasn't even considered throughout this $$$$ surge upward. The true kick in the face was dropping the price of gas late in the election campaign .. then going back up after the political outs won elevation to the ins status. But all this is insignificant to fact .. not fiction. The Mid-East is busting open with turmoil. Yet the billions we are paying to the oil rich nations is helping to fuel that turmoil and feed the Islamic hatred for us and our nation. I may only speak for myself, but I think our huge oil conglomerates don't really give even passing notice to this predicament and its impact on our future.