Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

The price of gasoline is increasing, and it is being blamed on less than optimal refinery output:

Refinery output in the U.S. has been below normal for several months now, after fires and other accidents combined with longer than normal maintenance shutdowns, hurting production.

Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at consulting firm Cameron Hanover, noted in a recent report that refineries have not operated above 95 percent capacity since Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005. Before 2005, the refineries, clustered around the Gulf coast and badly damaged in the storms, routinely operated at over 95 percent capacity.

So if you do the bare minimum to keep your refineries up, and if a problem occurs the price of your product, and therefore your profit, rises. Why would you bother to spend any money on maintaining your refineries?

In fact, you probably wouldn't even mind the occasional problem occurring.

Imperial Oil in Canada, having suffered a fire that caused severe gas shortages to many of their stations and pushed the price of gas in Canada up by 80 cents per gallon, just reported a 31% jump in profit for the quarter.Again, why bother maintaining your refineries?