And after all that hand holding the "Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz has rejected a request from US President George W Bush to help limit soaring oil prices by increasing production."

What a humiliating spectacle. Will Daddy Bush's friends no longer bail Junior out?

So Bush is now floating his "plan" to build new refineries to cut gas prices. Refine more gas so we can use up the worlds oil supply faster. Aside from that, Bush wants us to forget that he is in his SECOND term. We had a "gas crisis" at the beginning of this first term, and then as now, lack of refining capacity was cited (blamed on Clinton, of course). So, Mr. Bush, why have you fiddled for over four years on getting these refineries started?? Where is your leadership?The answer,naturally, is that it hasn't been a political problem until now. Just a consumer problem.

Not a bad excuse from the Saudis. They know, and Bush surely knows, that SA does NOT have the capacity anymore to provide any more oil. They are running flat out, and in the opinion of some experts ...

"If Saudi Arabia have damaged their fields, accidentally or not, by overproducing them, then we may have already passed peak oil. Iran has certainly peaked, there is no way on Earth they can ever get back to their production of six million barrels per day (mbpd)." Matt Simmons, energy investment banker.

The fields may well have been damaged by over production, which collapses the structure of the oil basin.

Recently SA responded to requests for more production by providing another 100,000 BBD, but the quality of the oil was very poor (high sulfer content), more evidence of lack of capacity.

The stock markets know what's coming: a reduction in standards of living for all us energy hogs (ie. North America). This decades long recession/depression will occur because of the unrelenting bidding up of oil/gas prices over the next several decades. The process will act like a tax and hurt the middle and lower classes especially.

"We are stardust,
We are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we've got to get ourselves back to the country." (Woodstock).

the price of our oil depends on the global price of oil. Extra saudi production would influence the global price of oil, thus bringing the price of oil we use in our refineries down.

Has anyone looked into our refining capacity? I would doubt that we are anywhere near full capacity. If we are, then the refiners are lousy businessmen because our demand for gasoline has not gone up at an unpredictable rate.

Are rising gas prices at the pump a result of a shortage of refined gas or the increase in oil prices? You can always count on the gas/refining/oil industry to make a profit wherever and whenever it can. It's not a real free market.

Just another example of Bush's completely sinister bullshit. One opportunistic policy after another. He's not stupid, he's venal and truly elitist.

Has anyone looked into our refining capacity? I would doubt that we are anywhere near full capacity. If we are, then the refiners are lousy businessmen because our demand for gasoline has not gone up at an unpredictable rate.

Not necessarily. They might be very good business people. They might have run the numbers on cost and time to bring a new refinery online, and conclded that by the time it came online there would not be enough crude coming in to keep the new refinery running long enough to pay for itself. No idea what the amortization on something like that is, but probably five to ten years.

If the oil people think that we are at or very near peak oil it doesn't make sense to be expanding our infrastructure. If this shortage has been around for five years already, someone in an oil company had to make a call like that.

Actually, many refineries have been shut down because they're not profitable to operate. Bush wants to convert former military bases into refineries, but there has to be a business reason for companies to undertake this.

But since nobody seems genuinely interested in getting the US off of oil, we'll probably have to drill for as much as possible, import as much as possible, and refine as much as possible.

We love oil here in America.

Muck, many refineries aren't up to code and they tend to have large explosions which are dangerous for the communities where the refineries are built. I know it's expensive to keep a refinery safe and up to code but I don't think it's asking too much that companies handling things that explode be held to an extremely high standard. Even if it shaves a percentage or two off their bottom line.

As for getting the country off oil, ha. Until alternative energy industries are subsidized by the Federal Government on the same level as nuclear and oil are, they won't be developed. The only thing in this country that seems to spur development of new technology is money.

As for me, I live in Chicago and depend on public transit. Due to less federal tax dollars being returned to the states because of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, our transit system is in a dire financial crisis. But the wealthy still have that tax deduction for buying those gas guzzling SUV.

The Saudis can't get their additional production going fast enough (years) and the old fields they're reworking probably won't last long after they squeeze the last remaining drops of cheap oil out of them. They're peaking in production and are no longer a swing producer. The price stays for these reason and any others are just politicians playing the "it's not my fault" game.

This is deception! The chickens are coming home to roost. Bush is trying to blame others for his failures. The lap dog media is playing along. The Saudis know Bush caused most of the price problem.

He devalued the dollar. Are oil prices up or is the value of the dollar down? How can we expect to get the same amount of oil from a devalued dollar? Bush devalued the dollar not Saudi Arabia!!!

Bush illegally invaded Iraq. The Iraq failure destabilized the region where most of the oil is produced. The high price has uncertainty built into the price to cover possible Iraq invasion related interruption. This is all Bush!!!!

The last refinery was built in 1976. Instead of increasing refinery capacity the industry has focused on enlarging the monopoly. Bush approved 33 refinery mergers. Velaro is buying Premcor as we speak. An unregulated monopoly can raise prices without fear of competition.

Bush and Company are engaging in all of this stupidity as oil demand around the world skyrockets. Instead of admitting mistakes these guys blame others and ask for bigger shovels.

Bush continues pouring the kool aid and the lap dog media serves it out.

Refineries are operating at full capacity, and the only reserve production capacity in Saudi Arabia is for heavy sour (sulfurous) crude -- not the light sweet crude that is easier to refine. Peak Oil has arrived in Saudi Arabia -- it's all downhill from here.

Refining has been a low profit part of the petroleum delivery system, which is the real reason capacity is maxed out. While there have not been any new refineries built, that's not the issue -- on NIMBY opposition alone, increased capacity is destined to be expanded refineries, not new ones.

And how has GM responded to the gas guzzler market smackdown? By advertizing On-Star! Since all of their profits are from gallons-per-mile vehicles, fear is the only thing they have to sell. Pathetic, isn't it?

Well, Ann, if we keep modifying the code to make it less and less profitable to run oil refineries, they'll continue to close.

Yet, we'll continue to burn 20 million barrels of oil a day, and rising.

Plan A: Burn oil.
Plan B: See Plan A.

What is the right decision for the U.S. public?

a. Spend $ 300 billion with Halliburton and Company to illegally invade Iraq.

b. Spend $ 300 billion to develop hybrid vehicle infrastructure. (The technology already exist)

Who profits from a?

Who profits from b?

What interest has priority?

a. public interest

b. special interest

I am closing my case!

Bush and Company are oil people. They came to office knowing oil was peaking. These guys are extremely short sited and stupid. It reminds me of a story my grand mother told me about:

a dog walking across a bridge and saw it's reflection in the water with a bone in it's mouth. The dog jumped into the water to take the bone from his reflection and lost his own bone.

This is the Iraq story. Bush and Company want to take Iraq's oil for the special interest and give the tab to the public.

Muck, I think you and I can both agree that refineries need to be safe. There's no excuse for the condition of some refineries - Clark Oil which was operating in Blue Island, IL, was run down, beat up and kept exploding or emitting toxic fumes just a few blocks from the local high school. But Clark Oil kept on making money, no problem there! Of course, it was cheaper for Clark to just shut the plant than to meet code regulations. Never mind the local job loss. Never mind that they don't have to pay for remediation or any environmental clean-up.

Refineries need to operate efficiently and meet all regulatory standards for safety. If this runs them out of business: GOOD. Then Americans will have to find alternative ways to fuel their cars and heat their homes. But we should never, ever sacrifice safety and a clean environment for the sake of the shareholders of any oil company.

Bush is on tv now spewing his "energy plan". His idea to use abandoned military bases for refineries exposes the reason his oil company Arbusto went busto. He doesn't know anything about the oil business. Refineries need to be by the source or at least in a place (port)where crude/petrol can be piped/transported in and out easily. Just picking Fort Nowhereville in Kentucky won't work.

I am glad there was no agreement. I hope the price goes up to $4 a gallon. At that level it becomes an automatic SUV luxury tax.

I for one have a big truck and the one's bitching are he first one's who ask me to haul something for them!So until you have a better anwser deal with it.

Jeramiah, it seems the only point you are making is that you have sponges for friends.

We, as a country have been through all this before and clearly learned nothing. Can we learn something this time? I'm not so sure. Building more refineries and/or drilling for more oil is short-sighted at best.

Investing in hybrid vehicles, "green" buildings, and renewable energy sources makes complete sense . . . unless you and your family and friends are living high on oil and could care less about the distant as opposed to the immediate future, i.e. the "get the most money you can while you can" mentality.

Smooth, it looks like WMD aren't the only things that Iraq didn't have. Just a day or so ago it was leaked that Iraq has about 1/3 of the amount of oil that we thought they had.

I'm now imagining that they may even have less than this. Our politicians and press like to make Saddam out to be a bit nuts but I doubt a crazy man could rule a country as long as he did without being toppled. Was he really nuts to go as far into Kuwait the way he did in the 90's or just desperate. Maybe Iraq has much less oil than outsiders think and they really needed Kuwaiti oil. What an irony!