Does anyone else understand this?
In the second debate, asked about energy policy, Trump responded with an example of his customary stream-of-consciousness. I won't quote it or try to dissect it all.
But it ended with this. Trump talked about how foreign companies are buying US companies in the oil & gas market, in order to get a hold on their plants. They are "buying so many of our different plants and then rejiggering the plant so they can take care of their oil."
Huh?
I don't know what he means by this and nobody yet has been able to enlighten me. Let's take a stab at it: he means buying oil companies to get their refineries?
Let's try to be specific. In 2011, a major international oil company, Statoil, spent $4.4 billion Brigham Resources, a small but innovative shale-oil firm active in North Dakota. Statoil is 67% owned by the Kingdom of Norway.
So is Norway having refineries (or "plants" in any sense) rejiggered so they can take care of their oil?
No. First, because Brigham is an exploration company, it isn't an integrated concern so it doesn't have any plants. It has wells, leases, intellectual property, etc.
But assume it had plants, just to continue. Does Norway need or want oil that is different in specifications from the oil demanded in the US? So that a refinery would have to be "rejiggered to take care of their oil" and presumably send it across the Atlantic?
If that were so, wouldn't it make more sense to spend some small portion of that $4.4 billion building the necessary refineries in Norway? to make that special Norway desired goop?
Was Trump just babbling or is there some grain of truth in this "rejiggering the plants" talk that I'm missing? Just in case the latter is the case, I've put a photo of some grains of truths above this post.
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