[Barbara]

Wait, there's something here that looks strange to me.
If refineries and pipelines are disrupted, then of course there's a gas shortage and consequent price skyrocketing.
But oil price should go down.
If the US consumes far less gas than before, if consumptions is 10%or 20% lower, then market rules should dictate a lowering in the price of oil... after all, oil price is based on *production*, and now there's a demand destruction in a global perspective!

Katrina and gas price is something, but why everybody here is linking Katrina and oil price? Katrina and Peak Oil too?

[Doly]

I was confused by the whole subject of refineries being blamed for oil prices getting higher until I got the picture.

The explanation is: heavy oil vs light oil. Most refineries can't deal with heavy oil. When one of the refineries that can refine heavy oil goes down, it increases the demand for light oil, and that means that the prices of light oil go up.

If I'm wrong, somebody correct me.

[Barbara]

No Doly, I was speaking about the effects of Katrina.
Ok for the gas price, because of pipelines disruption, but oil price should decrease for the lowering demand from the US.

[khebab]

US domestic oil production will fall dramatically this week so they will have to import more from the international market which has no spare capacity.

[Barbara]

bump
(LOL Cassandra strikes again...)