Over the past year, we have been hearing a lot of news about soaring crude oil prices. The easiest thing that we could think about is investing our money into independent oil refiners. Companies such as Frontier Oil (NYSE: FTO), Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO), Tesoro (NYSE: TSO), Alon USA Energy (NYSE: ALJ) or Western Refining (NYSE: WNR) are among those potential stocks on the waiting list.

Though it may seem surprising, Kiplinger.com advises us of exactly the opposite. Kiplinger underlines the fact that refiners represent a way to loose a lot of money... contrary to pipelines, oil producers and energy service companies. This came as the result of people's needs to transform crude oil into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel or heating oil.

The big difference between the cost of crude and the price of refined products is called the "crack spread", and this is where the problem comes in. In May of last year, the crack spread peaked at $27, and even moved up as high as $40 in some locations. This compares to the historical norm of closer to $20. But starting with the spring of 2007, things started changing, and the spread began to narrow... now the spread has fallen down to around $8.50 for some companies.