Hmm. From the "Peak Oil correspondent"

At the Agora Financial newsletter Whiskey and Gunpowder [A "free e-mail service brought to you by a team of rebellious brigands."]:

...the overall trend in the U.S. refinery business in the past 30 years has been to expand existing refineries, as opposed to building new ones. For many reasons, it is just too hard to build a new plant in this country, so the refiners have been overhauling and expanding the existing production base. There are fewer environmental hurdles, the local communities tend to be more in favor of expansion, and the refiners are dealing with fewer political unknowns. So the net effect is that in the past decade, refinery upgrades and expansions in the U.S. have added the equivalent of 10 ‘new’ refineries to the total base, and there is something like the equivalent of eight more refineries being ‘built’ via upgrades to existing facilities. This is why U.S. refinery output is at a record high.”
...
“The price of gas is rising,” said the Peak Oil correspondent, “because there are more people buying it than there are selling it. And there will be, for the rest of your life.”

As I say: hmmm.