If only we had our own refinery here in South Dakota with a reliable crude oil pipeline to feed it, maybe we wouldn’t always be at the whim of problems in other states that produce our refined petroleum products.

But, alas, the stout yeoman farmers of the Sibson clan over Mitchell way don’t want you to have a steady supply of gas for your car. I guess we could all just burn corn cobs or harvest algae bloom from Lake Mitchell and burn that in our cars instead.

Such a shame.

An excerpt from today’s online Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required):

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)—Fuel sellers north of Kansas are expecting to feel their supply pinched in the days ahead as the fallout from a flooded oil refinery reverberates throughout the regional market.

While the full effect of Coffeyville Resources LLC’srefinery shutdown has yet come to pass, some states have more to worry about than others. The Plains states have seen the plants they traditionally rely on for fuel suffer repeated breakdowns this year, depleting the region’s cushion of oil-product inventories. Officials in neighboring Oklahoma and Missouri, meanwhile, are more confident about getting gasoline and diesel.

On Tuesday the Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association of Kansas became the latest state, joining South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, to temporarily suspend some transport regulations that allow fuel tanker truck drivers to spend more time on the road securing supply for retail outlets… .