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Oil refinery catches fire in Northern California
A worker's helmet lies on the ground at an oil refinery.
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Jeremy Hobson: A major refinery for Chevron caught fire in California last night. The fire has been contained, but it's still burning.
And as Marketplace's Eve Troeh reports, one less refinery won't be helpful when it comes to gas prices.
Eve Troeh: Explosions were reportedly heard last night at Chevron's Richmond refinery, and the facility went up in flames. Only one employee was reported injured. But black smoke choked the sky for miles around the plant. Residents were warned to stay inside. Some evacuated of their own accord. The fire has been contained. Chevron is still investigating the source of the incident. State regulators say it could take months to repair the refinery.
Juli Niemann at Smith and Moore advisors says in other parts of the country demand is down, and this might not be such a big deal. But...
Juli Niemann: California has pretty steady demand for gasoline, and so when you take out the big Richmond California refinery, this is going to cause prices on the West Coast to definitely go up for the time being.
Oil and gas refineries have been at capacity for some time now. Older ones have been taken offline, over issues of pollution and operating costs. And as for building new ones? Well, Niemann says, no one wants a new refinery in their back yard.
I'm Eve Troeh for Marketplace.
Wow. I am no fan of pollution, but I do care about the reputation of Public Radio. Juli Niemann's comments were so far out of line. When Marketplace allows a guest to stray so far into advocacy in answer to a simple question of how the fire started, it really makes one wonder about the show's bias.
You have absolutely NO idea. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and up until a few weeks ago, we had been paying between 25% and 35% more *per gallon* than the so-called "National Average". This is because we had the regional refinery go off-line due to a catastrophic fire. Nowhere in the media was this covered, nor was it mentioned when prices were bemoaned elsewhere. Meanwhile we were grumbling at the radio, "Wish you were here, buying gas..."
A refinery is a messy, dangerous neighbor. And they are the physical bottleneck to getting lower fuel prices. Yes, we do need one or two more in the country. But where will we put them...?
Can't wait to see how this gets covered now that a highly visible and vocal segment of the population will be affected.
