This is the biggest body blow to the petroleum supply system in history. What we're talking about is market competition in a situation where in the United States, we've lost at least 11 percent of our refining.
It's a pretty big hit, ... There's no question there will be some very real market impact.
It's much more of a world market with oil.
Markets work, if you let them. Clearly, with $60 oil, anybody who can get a project into production and sell oil is going to be doing that.
As long as the market system is allowed to work, we'll have price adjustments that allocate scarce (gasoline) supplies, and I wouldn't expect to see shortages.
Right now, the short-term markets are going a little crazy. If there is little damage, they can reverse themselves.
Our companies don't set the price. The market sets the price.
When you start intervening in a market, it starts you down a slippery slope of price controls, marketing manipulation and -- ultimately -- the bad energy policy that we suffered through in the 1970s.