Rick Mueller Quotations

The Nigerian rebels have shown they are able to interdict shipments. It won't be surprising if there are more disruptions.

More plants are coming on line and producing additional gasoline.

The new specifications are confusing folks. It makes it hard to know where we stand when it comes to inventories.

Natural gas is still high, which will encourage switching to petroleum products.

This reminds us how dangerous the world is, especially the Middle East, where so much of our oil comes from.

It seems every day there's a story of a refinery with a problem,

The Houston area is ground zero of the refining industry. If it suffers the scope of damage caused to refineries in Louisiana by Katrina, we could see rationing and queues at the gas pump.

The underlying fundamentals are so tight that we always have to be concerned about the worst-case scenario. Last year, Ivan cut production by 1 million barrels a day and although that's not likely, it has to be taken into account.

As long as crude oil is still up in the high $50s, gasoline at the retail pump can't come down too much,

There is still concern about distillates. Once a big batch of cold weather moves in, prices will surge.