Energy Dept. to monitor refinery outages

BISMARCK, N.D. – The federal Energy Department has agreed to monitor oil refinery outages, a move Sen. Byron Dorgan believes could help prevent simultaneous plant shutdowns leading to high fuel prices and tight supplies.

Dorgan, D-N.D, and energy officials said that last year as many as eight nationwide refinery outages — most of which were planned for repairs or maintenance — contributed to fuel shortages in North Dakota and elsewhere.


“We don’t want to be in a situation where this happens again,” Dorgan said.

Last November, Dorgan held a Senate committee meeting in Bismarck to investigate fuel shortages that he said forced North Dakota motorists to pay among highest prices in the nation for gasoline over the summer.

Dorgan asked the Energy Department to develop a system to monitor the shutdowns and watch for a potential disruption of supplies. Antitrust laws forbid companies to share information on planned refinery shutdowns with each other.

“By and large, this information was not being collected,” Dorgan said. “The Department of Energy was blissfully uninformed.”

AP