Refiners= lots of credit to operate Credit market nearly frozen+not so good crack spreads I work for a refinery and were in full diesel mode gas is a waste of time to the refiners right now.
ye the gulf crack is terrible right now, even though just on monday it was like 15$, i just used the nymex crack calculator which gives you a VERY VEYR rough idea within like $1-2 +/- of where it is and i got a result of $2.95 a barrel just a few days ago if u entered in the same numbers in to the calc u'd be getting numbers like 12-13-14
VLO seems pretty well managed. most of the debt matures after 2012, the more current ones can be financed out of cashflows. I didnt took a risk on the speculative refiners because of that http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/3297/valerodebtdg2.jpg