Petroleum group discounts ethanol's role in gas prices

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Kris Bevill February 27, 2012

In a Feb. 22 press call to discuss rising gas prices, the American Petroleum Institute’s chief economist, John Felmy, blamed crude oil prices for high prices at the pump, and said refinery closures and increasing exports of U.S. gas and diesel are not major factors in the spike in prices. Felmy said that, in fact, U.S. refineries produced record amounts of gasoline in 2011 and in January, due to their ability to produce more gasoline and diesel from every barrel of crude. He also noted that the use of biofuels has reduced the amount of petroleum fuels needed in the market. “We’ve had a mandate to have more biofuels in the refinery stream and so the total finished gasoline supplies have gone up as a function of all those things,” he said.

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