Are there any independent studies portraying the future of U.S. petroleum refining and marketing?
An excellent resource for this was just published by the RAND CORPORATION (high level “think tank” organization). The U.S. refining industry’s future is reported by their researchers who led structured discussions with 72 representatives from 40 organizations including 18 operating companies (refiners) and 10 firms that provide refineries their process technologies, equipment and services. The 2002 Summary of their findings may be viewed by clicking on U.S.Refining Industry’s Future . The entire study is available at the RAND CORP web site . As for the future of U.S. petroleum marketing , to our knowledge not yet studied by the RAND CORP, our belief is that it will include far fewer retail facilities (locations) selling much greater volumes of fuels (1,000,000 gallons monthly will become commonplace); rapid evolution of the “one-stop-shopping” concept (co-branding) including placement of an ever-increasing number of carefully selected profit centers as each new one is tested and found
