Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Libya and the mid-Continent Refiners

To show how things are so completely interrelated, the success of the revolution in Libya is responsible for the relative decline in the mid-US refiners. The "reasoning" is this : Libya will come back on stream; world (Brent) prices will come down and be equalized with WTI; and the refiners will lose their edge.

All this is plausible but awfully premature. Brent - WTI will not get back to normal levels until pipelines are built that can move the oil surplus in mid-North America to the coasts. BTW, the surplus is getting bigger with continuing drilling in "oily" shale structures. For now, the prospective pipelines are having a hard time getting financing (one was put on hold yesterday). So I'm using this as a chance to add to positions.

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