Kuwait seems to think there is a market for a new refinery in the US.

This article in today's Chronicle, tends to give lie to the statements by ExxonMobil's VP Kenneth Cohen as reported over on Loren Steffy's blog, Full Disclosure, just a week or so ago. Kuwait is looking for an investment partner in what would be the first new refinery to be built in the US in 30 years. I only hope that Kuwait, and whoever the partner eventually turns out to be, chooses to put this facility far enough from the gulf coast region that it is not threatened by hurricanes. Perhaps Oklahoma or West Texas. Perhaps the Federal Government could invest in the project in order to make sure that excess capacity (unused and kept in reserve) is built and kept ready in case capacity elsewhere is taken offline. Think of it as a strategic refining capacity reserve. This could be a win-win-win scenario. As I said previously, this is a issue of national security. We as a country MUST protect ourselves from the near certainty of economic collapse that would result if a significant percentage of our refining capacity were lost. The only way to do that is to have excess capacity and have it geographically separated to prevent loosing an even larger percentage to accidental or intentional destruction. Given the recent weather reports, in less than a week from today, we may very well find ourselves contemplating the loss of over 25% of our refining capacity at a time when about 5% of that capacity is already offline due to yet another hurricane. How long are we going to be able to whistle past the graveyard before we get dragged into it ourselves? The clock is running and nobody knows when it will run down...