On a news show the other day, a commentator dropped an important statistic, one which seems to have gone unnoticed: “There hasn’t been a single new oil refinery built within the U.S. in the last 25 years.”

I find that fact utterly amazing.

Since 1974, there have been a number of “oil shortages.” Every time it happens, a number of causes are cited by the media. A favorite one is a “shortage of refining capacity” that invariably creates a “distribution bottleneck.”

Are we to naively believe that the oil companies couldn’t possibly have anticipated a dramatic increase in the U.S. oil consumption over all those years? Nor the absolute necessity of building more refineries in order to keep up with that rapidly increasing demand?

I think not.

In any other type of business, steps would have quickly been taken to eliminate any potential bottlenecks in a distribution system.

I think the oil companies did anticipate that increased consumption and deliberately refused to build new refineries to handle it, knowing that it was only a matter of time until we eventually had a crisis situation they could exploit – such as the one we now have.

Roland Fleming, Auburn