The Ontario Esso refinery fire = gold mine

They had a fire at a refinery in Ontario Canada about a month ago.
The price of gasoline went from $0.74/litre to $1.00/litre (about
$1.03 per American gallon increase). Now, I don't know what the cost
of the fire was to Esso, but the higher cost due to shortages netted
Esso, Shell and Petro Canada about $110 million extra over the course
of 3.5 weeks. This was while the world price for crude was stable at
around $58/barrel. Not bad.....They should start more fires!

In article . com>, Rich wrote:
> They had a fire at a refinery in Ontario Canada about a month ago.
> The price of gasoline went from $0.74/litre to $1.00/litre (about
> $1.03 per American gallon increase). Now, I don't know what the cost
> of the fire was to Esso, but the higher cost due to shortages netted
> Esso, Shell and Petro Canada about $110 million extra over the course
> of 3.5 weeks. This was while the world price for crude was stable at
> around $58/barrel. Not bad.....They should start more fires!

Same sort of thing happened in the USA when BP let a pipeline in Alaska to
rust out. Must be nice to be rewarded for one's own incompetence... .then
again maybe it's a plan of ready made excuses to cut supply and profit.

In other industries, where there is a real free market, if your plant
blows up or is otherwise knocked off line, it can mean going out of
business.