Throw Down Your Leavy Screens

You mean that getting to sit at C.E. Woolman's desk every day does not make Richard Anderson qualified?

DL2SXM

I don't think he's that bad.

deltalirious

While the title may not be informative, it is evocative.
It is a title of a Monty Python film from the 1970s.

Sabai

Perhaps if we leverage the power of Woolman's magic desk with a night in a Holiday Inn Express?

sethb

When Delta buys jet fuel, it pays taxes. I don't know what the tax situation would be if it burned its own fuel, but there might prove a use for all those MBAs in ATL after all.

azeckel

By this logic, they would need to integrate all the way down to hydrocarbon exploration in order to avoid sales tax on raw materials. Unless they have another way to produce crude oil that I'm not aware of...

xliioper

Aviation fuel used for commercial purposes is only taxed at 4.4¢/gal. I can't see this alone as being the reason for running your own refinery. My guess is that they really don't intend to use the fuel themselves, but rather use it as a hedging instrument on the crack spread. When the crack spread is high, they can offset their increased fuel costs by selling the fuel from the plant at a profit.

sxf24

Bingo.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Some more perspective...

http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/20...ys-a-refinery/

adamj023

What bothers me is that the high oil prices we are seeing which the airlines are complaining about aren't because of lack of supply. It is because of things just like the inactive Conoco refining facility and the lack of a true policy by the government and to interfere in businesses and in new oil rigs and the like and refusing to build out new pipelines and other infrastructure needed.

All the money the government fraudulently spent on Solyndra and other businesses tied back to their cronies, were not used for the good of the citizens to give us real energy that works and matters in our daily lives.

Airplanes run on jetfuel not solar cells. Solar cells never have the efficiency of energy stored to be meaningful. Now for homes you can pay more upfront for solar and pay less later and get paid off the grid assuming a legitimate business model of efficiently cheap low cost of production solar cells. But that is another story.

Delta is smart for wanting to buy this refinery, but considering it has been for sale for awhile now, I don't understand why they weren't interested in it earlier or maybe I do:

"With East Coast refineries such as Trainer buying oil tied to the price of international benchmark Brent crude futures, the plants must pay more for their feedstock than refiners in the Midwest that run crude priced against U.S. benchmarked West Texas Intermediate."

It is an east coast refinery and is geographically located well for Delta. But we have a government that REFUSES to implement things like the Keystone Pipeline.

The question for Delta is can they make it work for them to reduce their existing fuel costs. Refineries turn raw fuel stock into finished materials.

And fuel comes from various locations but is cheaper and more efficient to pipe in.

I am not sure the direct routes of access from this refinery to the airports especially those run by Delta. Obviously even if they did operate this refinery, they would also be selling excess capacity fuel they didn't need.

Would it make sense for Delta to acquire this plant? If it remains inactive and the buying price is low it could be a win for Delta and a win for Conoco who would get money for a plant they no longer need.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Looks like they have some competition:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industrie...ine-fuel-woes/

ncvet61

I think the key here is not that the oil company no longer needs it, but rather they no longer want it as it's been losing money for several years.

Let me see,.... an oil company in the business of refining can't make money, so they sell it to another company who knows nothing about refining oil so they can become profitable by extracting the least amount of the refined product, (Jet fuel)......

Sounds like something the Government should jump on. They could list it with their Solar company assets.

corbetti

You know, they pass the cost savings on to the airline, which allows them to reflect it in lower ticket prices relative to the competition, with a hope that the difference is enough per ticket to draw marginal additional travelers to their planes and away from the competition. So even if the "savings" is really just money moved from the refinery to the airline's balance sheet, the growing of the overall pie through increased ticket sales might be the real play.

Just a thought.

nfg05

Is that the goal of a title?

nfg05

They would not run the refinery themselves, but would contract to someone who actually knows what they're doing.