New York (Platts)--17Dec2007
US President George W. Bush on Monday said the country needs to encourage
the construction of new refineries and the expansion of existing plants in
order to ensure adequate supplies of gasoline until the nation can shift
comfortably to alternative fuels.
"We're not building new refineries and it makes no sense not to increase
the supply of gasoline," Bush told a business group in Virginia during a
question-and-answer session following a televised address. "If you're
concerned about the price of gasoline, one way to deal with it is to encourage
the expansion of refineries."
Bush mentioned the proposal he made a couple of years ago under which new
refineries could be built on abandoned military bases.
"There are some, I don't know why, they wouldn't be for something as
common sensical at that," he said.
Bush cautioned action on refineries is needed now because of the
time-consuming nature of developing alternative sources of energy.
"We're going to be using oil and gas for a while," Bush said. "It's going
to take a while to diversify. And therefore for the sake of our consumers and
the economy, we need to make sure we have reliable supplies."
--Kevin Saville, kevin_saville@platts.com
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