Voices: No oil shortage

August 26, 2008 10:34 pm

— Have you heard that we have an oil shortage in America?
We don’t have an oil shortage. We just have trouble getting it through our old refineries fast enough. I hear that no new refineries have been built in America for 30 years. With their multibillion-dollar profits, why have oil companies failed to build a new refinery once in a while?
I think it’s the same reason they changed from “service stations” to “filling stations.” They want to limit the supply of gasoline and diesel.
The same amount of product is going through the refineries, but the demand is growing. The oil companies closed down the old “mom and pop” service stations in order to be able to control the market. If you remember any operators of the old-time stations, just ask them what the oil company did to get them out of business. Sometimes the oil company bought the station. Sometimes they were paid not to sell gas. It sounded like a good deal, but they were getting control of the market.
Drilling for more oil is not the answer. It would just give the oil companies more product to run through the same refineries and through their same “filling stations” for $4 gasoline and diesel.
Our leaders in Washington need to wake up and quit giving in to these multibillion-dollar companies. I know, but that’s the way they get elected.
We have the best government that money can buy. We need some that money cannot buy.
James Shope
Neosho