Financial Times has an excellent article Blockage in the pipeline (subscription required). The article provides a solid review of the oil industry from a global perspective, with emphasis on refining. Furthermore, the article has graphs that show global oil refining capacity utilization, U.S. supply, U.S. petrol refining margins - 'crack' spread, and Refinery capacity change.
Mr Tillerson, who is expected to take over at the helm of the world's largest publicly traded oil company and refiner this year, warned against taking long-term investment decisions on the basis of short-term price movements. "Short-term price fluctuations do not significantly affect the pace of our projects at ExxonMobil," he said. "Nor should -current prices significantly affect the pace of investment or market liberalisation."
A company deciding to commission a refinery today would also have to contend with a market for engineering and construction services that is stretched to the limit. Building costs have doubled or, in some cases, tripled over the past three years, making financial projections even more uncertain. "It's sort of an Alice in Wonderland deal," says Matt Simmons, an independent energy banker. "Once we've solved one bottleneck, we realise there's another bottleneck right behind it."
If you are at all interested in oil, I highly recommend reading this article. It provides a wealth of information in a succinct fashion.
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