Gas supplies in the Western Cape HERE we go again. There is a severe shortage of gas in the Western Cape. The Chevron refinery is having problems it will take at least a week to fix. Consumers are shouting "foul" and the media are printing the usual dial-a-quote source saying "Chevron needs to explain themselves (sic) to the industry and their consumers” Quite apart from the grammatical nonsense of this, the story once again betrays the almost total ignorance of the general public of which the newspapers are but an example. A refinery is not a simple machine that you can turn on an off like a tap. Building a new one costs about US4 billion or R30+- billion. Once built, it has to be maintained. That means shutting it down every now and then - otherwise it might blow up. Chevron refinery went down recently for routine maintenance but it took longer than expected to start up again. Nobody's fault, here. Yes, the refinery is old. Yes, in the best of all possible worlds it would have been replaced by now (it was built in the 1960s) but can you imagine the howl of protest from the members of our present government, then in exile, if Chevron had invested in a major upgrade back in the 1980s? We do need a new refinery in South Africa. That means removing the dead hand of Government from the oil industry, not more regulations, not more permits to operate and not more controls on prices. We know why they like interfering in the industry. It’s the amount of money sloshing around that pricks up ears and makes palms itchy.