That’s like 3 questions. Obviously there was money in refining or else they never would have been built in the first place. Shell and Exxon didn’t build refineries out the kindness of their hearts in the first place.

But oil was really cheap then, it didn’t cut into their bottom line. Oil isn’t as cheap anymore. And like good capitalists, gotta turn a better profit then the previous quarter or the executives don’t get their bonus.

It’s another Ponzi scheme. Eventually producing crude won’t matter if we can’t turn it into something useful.

You seem to think greed is a four letter word. It’s not. Greed has its limits.