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Cushing Refinery hub part of ABC oil special
TV takes viewers from the pump to the wellhead.
ABC News' Charles Gibson has traveled to Oklahoma and across the country to uncover some of the little known secrets of the oil industry and talks to Steve Wuori (right), executive vice president of Enbridge Pipelines in Cushing, for the news special "Over a Barrel: The Truth About Oil." It airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on ABC, channel 8. SHANE BEVEL/ABC
By RITA SHERROW World Television Editor
Published: 7/19/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 7/19/2009 4:43 AM
Yes, we know gasoline comes from a pump at a station or convenience store. Some of us know that gasoline comes from a refinery hub but may not know that there is one less than 50 miles from Tulsa. Still fewer are aware that Canada is the largest supplier of U.S. oil, that oil from Saudi Arabia is the cheapest, and oil from the Gulf of Mexico is the most expensive to extract.
ABC News' anchor Charles Gibson plans to get viewers up to speed with the whole story from gas pump to oil well in the special "Over a Barrel: The Truth About Oil," airing Wednesday.
"The real purpose is, if you drive a car or happen to be alive and live in America today, your life is deeply affected by our addiction to oil," said executive producer Tom Yellin, who is president and executive producer of the Documentary Group, and spent most of most of his childhood summers in Okmulgee and "at least 15 Thanksgivings in Tulsa."
(Yellin, whose mother graduated from Tulsa's Central High School and whose grandfather was mayor of Okmulgee, is descended from Dixie Gilmer, an Oklahoma state representative who served as Tulsa County attorney and stood unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the office of Oklahoma governor.)
"Not just gasoline but oil is so ubiquitous," said Yellin in a recent phone interview from his New York office. "The thing that got us interested was noting that supply was up and the demand was down slightly. But it wasn't reflected in the price.
"We decided to start at the gas tank and work backward
to try and understand how gasoline is created and that is what brought us to Cushing where we discovered all kinds of things. One of them is that the national price of a barrel of oil is set in Cushing."
Dependence
The show, produced by Yellin's company for ABC News, includes reports Gibson learned from Wall Street insiders about what caused last summer's skyrocketing oil prices (up to $147 a barrel) and memos obtained by ABC News indicating that oil companies (which are vertically integrated with the refining business) have limited the number of refineries nationwide to keep profits high and prices at the pump unstable.
The government "looked at monopoly and price manipulations and concluded they can't find evidence of it. It's hard to argue but there are no rules against it."
"Chu (Energy Secretary Steven Chu) and people who are sort of forward thinking say 'Let's not build more refineries. Let's find more alternatives,' " Yellin said. "No one disputes that oil is going to be with us for long long time but (developing) alternatives will help dependence go down."
What we learned
Discoveries executive
producer Tom Yellin
and ABC News anchor
Charles Gibson made
while working on “Over
a Barrel”:
“Americans make up
4 percent of the world’s
population but use 25
percent of the world’s
oil.
“70 percent of oil is
used for cars.
“Maybe everyone
knows this but all gasoline
is virtually identical
and comes from the
same refineries. The
only slight differences
are additives such as
detergent.
“Basically, the price
of a barrel of oil nationally
is set in refinery
center like Cushing, 49.9
miles south and west of
Tulsa.
“Supply and demand
for gas and oil fluctuate
within a narrow band
but price can fluctuate
100 percent or more.
“On a larger scale,
oil prices are affected
by everything from the
commodities market
to rumors of problems
in Nigeria to a possible
hurricane coming. The
oil price is extremely
vulnerable to rumors.
“The process used to
produce gasoline in this
country is incredibly
cheap at $2.50 a gallon.
The inexpensiveness of
it is what keeps America
addicted to gasoline.
OVER A BARREL: THE TRUTH ABOUT OIL
When: 9 p.m. Wednesday
Where: ABC, channel 8
Rita Sherrow 581-8360
rita.sherrow@tulsaworld.com
By RITA SHERROW World Television Editor
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