This resource requires special extraction methods to get it out of the ground and into a form where it is fluid enough to travel down the pipelines for refining into gasoline and other hydrocarbon products.
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Diesel fuel requires less refining than gasoline.
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Namely, beyond foregoing the obvious benefits that come from value-added processing such as refining (gasoline sells a lot more per gallon than the cost of a gallon of crude oil), we are incurring secondary costs that impact, in part, the very environment that radical environmentalists are trying to protect.
The refinery incurred losses in two of the past three years and its financial outlook is expected to remain challenged as a result of new environmental regulations and a weak forecast for gasoline refining profitability, Hess said.
While the octane specification of a particular grade is constant throughout the year, the RVP specification changes with the seasons. (See Refining 101: Winter Gasoline for a more detailed explanation of gasoline blends).
Both companies suffered when gasoline demand and refining margins collapsed in late 2008 and the adoption of carbon-cap-and-trade seemed imminent.
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Despite tight gasoline supplies and record refining margins, no new refinery has been built in America for 20 years.
There are other things that go into the cost of a gallon of gasoline, things like refining costs, taxes, those taxes don't change.
The refined products and marketing division is responsible for refining and marketing various products such as gasoline, aviation fuel, fuel oil and middle distillates.
Now, China appears to be picking up this newly available market share, a mutually beneficial arrangement, as Iran needs the gasoline and China has surplus refining and shipping capacity.
Already, despite its massive oil production of roughly 2 million bpd, Venezuela imports increasingly large amounts of gasoline to compensate for a deteriorating refining system.
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Petrobras was forced to import crude and gasoline in the quarter, as its refining capacity allowed it to process 1.886 million barrels of oil per day, while they sold 2.2 million.
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Whatever the price of crude, the gasoline makers were able to tack on a fat refining spread.
Downstream activities generally refer to the refining of crude oil and distributing its by-products including gasoline, natural gas, LPG and diesel.
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Iran is working feverishly to build up refining capacity because it currently must import a significant amount of its gasoline.
As demand increases due to growth in the economy, we expect refining margins to also increase, putting an upward pressure on the price of gasoline and other refined products.
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It also revealed a 1999 memo by an unidentified BP executive that discussed ways to "shut down ... supply" to increase prices, including such measures as buying rival refiners and closing them, or offering to supply gasoline to rivals in return for their agreement to eliminate their own refining capacity.
Hence, the gasoline like crude is selling for a discount and some folks are reportedly refining it in the field.
Historically, gasoline has cost more than diesel, which is a byproduct of the oil refining process.
Bush's plan, which aims to insulate consumers from high prices while fattening stores of gasoline and other refined oil products, will likely call for the boosting of domestic refining capacity, perhaps by building as many as 40 oil refineries over the next 20 years.
Bush also insisted that if gasoline prices went up, it would be because the United States did not have enough refining capacity.
The prices of refined products like diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, might increase much more sharply than crude-oil futures because of the refining belt that runs along the Gulf.
By that point Venezuela could also be a significant exporter of refined products like gasoline and jet fuel, as environmental controls and poor investment returns keep the U.S. refining industry from expanding to meet demand.
"This crash began back when refining problems around the country were being fixed, one after the other, at the same time that our seasonal gasoline demand was shrinking, " she said.
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