The price of gas may become somewhat irrelevant after tonight.
$70 or $90 or $100 a barrell will be mitigated by any actual /physical/ shortage of gasoline. You can't buy a product, regardless of price, if it isn't physically on the shelf to be bought...
Discussion I had somewhere else--the Strategic Petroleum Reserve doesn't matter, since there's no Strategic Refinery Reserve...
Damon is right, it is not the crude it is the refining of it. Here is a break down of the refinerys that are shut down because of Katrina.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the largest oil import terminal in the United States, evacuated all workers and stopped unloading ships on Saturday.
Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch-Shell Group, BP PLC and ExxonMobil Corp., among others, evacuated offshore workers by Saturday.Refineries capable of processing some 1.6 million barrels a day have shut down. According to Dow Jones, they include:
• Chevron's 325,000 barrel a day refinery in Pascagoula, Miss.
• ConocoPhillips' 255,000 barrel a day Alliance refinery, south of New Orleans.
• Valero Energy Corp.'s 260,000 barrel a day refinery in St. Charles.
• Murphy Oil Corp.'s 120,000 barrel a day refinery in Meraux, La.
• Exxon Mobil Corp.'s 183,000 barrel a day refinery in Chalmette, La.
• Motiva Enterprises' 225,000-barrel a day Norco refinery, and its 235,000-barrel-a-day Convent refinery.
• Marathon's 245,000 barrel a day Garyville, La. refinery.