It sounds good, that another oil refinery should be built in North Dakota. But realistic? That's a different matter.

The proposal from a candidate for the nomination to run for the North Dakota governorship is that the state should build one. Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, said he thinks a state-built refinery would help make the price of gasoline reasonable.

First, there would need to be solid evidence that having another refinery here could alter the supply-demand ratio so as to overcome market variables.

It should be noted that North Dakota is an exporter of gasoline. The Tesoro Refinery in Mandan produces more fuel than consumers in the state buy.

Second, there must be a compelling reason for the state to get into the gasoline business. It's as much of a stretch as suggesting that the state could drill for oil or mine lignite coal.

Of course we could. North Dakota also could get into retail business and go up against Wal-Mart.

And we maybe could lose our collective shirt.

There are reasons for the number of refineries being relatively few. A refinery is ferociously expensive to build. A refinery like the one in Mandan might cost $1.44 billion to get into production. And the process of doing all the design work, getting the necessary permits after completing the requisite studies, then building the facility likely would take 10 years. The admittedly wealthy energy industry is reluctant right now to take the risk and make the investment in building a new refinery. That's why none was built for 30 years.

Without having done the hard, expensive work of nailing down the financials, to propose that the state should get into the refinery business might only be political dreamweaving.

The state might be taking a more practical approach by helping out financially with a Williston entrepreneur's exploration of the feasibility of building a refinery in his area, next door to the Oil Patch. The Industrial Commission awarded him $40,000 to get started with the study. Also, for a few years the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation has pondered whether starting a refinery on the Fort Berthold Reservation would be feasible. The tribal authority wisely is being cautious toward the undertaking.

The argument that building a state-run refinery is analogous to the state's ownership of the mill and elevator in Grand Forks is interesting but ultimately weak. Producing and marketing flour is, in terms of complexity and risk, a light year away from refining petroleum and plunging into the volatile fuel marketing business.

As a state, North Dakota has projects and prospects more pressing than any effort to become the next ExxonMobil.