Bye-bye Skippy. Let gas prices continue to rise!

[RustNeverSleeps]

Unfortunately our refining capacity is at its limit due to environmental retulations and 'nimby' issues. Even a scheduled maintenance of 1 refining plant can cause price spikes.

I disagree. The powerful oil industry could expand refining capabilities if they wanted to. What they realize is that we are at "peak oil" and it is not "economically feasible" to build new refineries. This is their last grab at profits.

The real issue is that we need to change the way we live. The sooner we collectively accept this, become proactive and change, the better chance we have.

 

[Blue1]

I disagree. The powerful oil industry could expand refining capabilities if they wanted to. What they realize is that we are at "peak oil" and it is not "economically feasible" to build new refineries. This is their last grab at profits.

The real issue is that we need to change the way we live. The sooner we collectively accept this, become proactive and change, the better chance we have.

Their sworn testimony on Capitol Hill flies in the face of your supposition. The world runs on
petro-fuel right now...that is reality. The 'un-reality' is that foisted on us by the environmental movement that has graduated into a kind of religion.

The petro-market is completely controlled by a select few so typical market forces (supply and demand) cannot be accuately determined thereby, facilitating it's manuipulation.

 

[Couch Potato]

I disagree. The powerful oil industry could expand refining capabilities if they wanted to. What they realize is that we are at "peak oil" and it is not "economically feasible" to build new refineries. This is their last grab at profits.

The real issue is that we need to change the way we live. The sooner we collectively accept this, become proactive and change, the better chance we have.

New refineries have not been built, but old ones have been expanded and remodeled. Also there have been many refineries built overseas. There was a time when our refineries would export finished products to other countries. As for being at "peak oil," even those that subscribe to the theory don't have it occurring on a global scale for at least another 20 years. Some still have it 50 years out. That of course is based on known reserves, does not allow for new fields to be found and assumes current estimates of production are accurate.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

The powerful oil industry could expand refining capabilities if they wanted to. What they realize is that we are at "peak oil" and it is not "economically feasible"

If we have reached the "peak" then 50% of the oil remains in the ground. That 50% is going to be a lot harder to get to and therefore prices will creep up. The current run up is a function of speculation - pure and simple. Oil will be our primary source as a "master resource" for a long time.

BTW, Ind. is suing Ill (or visa versa) to stop a new refinery from being built across the line from them...that is the typical kinds of NIMBY that goes on. And shutting dow a refinery is a 30 -50 year project. Old refineries continue to be a drag upon the bottom line of the refiners.

petro-market is completely controlled by a select few so typical market forces (supply and demand) cannot be accuately determined thereby, facilitating it's manuipulation.

The oil companies control 8% of the oil reserves. OPEC & major producers like Russia control 80% virtually all of it state owned. BP is being forced out of Russia. This is the last international company left in Russia and they are going to lose a ton of money on the project. Russia re-nationalized oil and gas when prices started to climb. Ditto for Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, etc.

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

[FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]This is from the mouth of Dick Cheney, 1999, London Petroleum Institute autumn lunch. Scary.[/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]

“From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. [FONT=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic]Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic]For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic]Oil remains fundamentally a government business. [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities[/FONT][FONT=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic], the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, [/FONT] [FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]even though companies are anxious for greater access there[/FONT][FONT=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic], progress continues to be slow.[/FONT][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]” [/FONT][FONT=TimesNewRoman,Italic]My Bold[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[Oh No Not Him]

The bottom line is everything has gone up due to fuel costs..except some aoppr fees (transunion) where they are actually trying to cut fees. Look at some of your household bills...my trash hauler charges me a 2-3 dollar fuel surcharge...2-3 bucks when he stops at 40 homes on my street!!!

 

[Mztk1]

The ugly truth is if refineries operate at near 100% capacity it will artificially reduce supply, increase the price of gas, and allow for excess profit. Oil companies are the ones responsible for shutting down refineries (closed more than half of them on their own in the past 30 years) and since 1975 only one pemit has been filed by an oil company to build a new refinery, and it was approved.

A lot of people spat out "the free market" but what they don't remember is that what the free market really means in many market-types is "The lowest possible quality at the highest possible price (LPQ@HPP) in order to maximize profit margin". Many will claim competition will prevent that type of behavior. It can on simple products that are highly elastic (i.e., perfect markets like eggs). But the general rule in more complex purchases or imperfect markets is "LPQ@HPP". We see it all the time in real estate with builders cutting corners because most buyers cannot be supervising 24/7 and wouldn't know good quality from bad in many cases anyway. Builders in my area of Florida even developed the same mindset on cost cutting expenses, like never using double pane windows because "it is over kill insulation with our weather" - total bs but it allows for LPQ@HPP. In part, that is what building codes are put into effect to prevent, but they only work so far. With the recent boom and buyers willing to pay a lot for upgrades, insulated glass came back with many builders, but some - like SunRise Homes - still claims the overkill thing and now with the decline, the market for such glass is waning due to builder's "educating" their buyers against it.

Along with closing refineries to reduce supply, opening up the oil commodities market is driving up prices. Retirement funds and other big interest investors have to show a 4% margin to buy - much lower than other commodities - which is causing huge surges.

Oil supply is not down. In fact fields that should have dried up years ago according to original estimates, that have been pumped for 40 and 50 years years now have 2X the amount of reserves in them then they did when first tapped! The famous example is the well that ran dry off the Louisianna coast (Eugene Island 330) that then replenished itself and is pumping out as much oil as ever. But this field is not the exception, there are plenty like it around the globe. The oil fields are being filled from the bottom, which has created much speculation that oil reserves are exceptionally higher than ever thought, and now it is becoming a more widely accepted theory that oil is an inorganic compound created by the earth's churning at some of its deepest levels where it is continually replenished. When rising to the surface it picks up traces of organic material giving it a "stamp" of being organic when in fact it's not. Profits need to be maximized now before this is "common knowledge" and oil becomes more like eggs.

I personally believe that we need to get away from oil for environmental reasons but that this shortage and price increase and the claim that the problem is environmental whackos won't let refineries be built, is a shell game by the oil companies looking to increase profits. And sure they testified under oath before congress, but so did big tobacco for years and years and years. Profits come first, everything else is last.

People wonder why we can't find this stuff in the main stream media. When "Conservative" ideals are left out, the right screams "Liberal Media", when "Progressive Ideas never get the time of day (a liberal friend once pointed out that if the media was liberal the news anchors would be hippy-like with t-shirts and jeans, not suits), the populists crowd shout "Conservative Bias". The truth is, though, the media is no different than the oil companies. Giant corporations running a non-perfect business model looking to maximize their profits, very often in their sister companies, by promoting their own interests. Okay there's my conspiracy rant.

http://okiedoke.com/blog/?p=2269

http://www.infowars.com/articles/economy/peak_oil_index.htm

 

[Tudor]

The ugly truth is if refineries operate at near 100% capacity it will artificially reduce supply, increase the price of gas, and allow for excess profit. Oil companies are the ones responsible for shutting down refineries (closed more than half of them on their own in the past 30 years) and since 1975 only one pemit has been filed by an oil company to build a new refinery, and it was approved.

A lot of people spat out "the free market" but what they don't remember is that what the free market really means in many market-types is "The lowest possible quality at the highest possible price (LPQ@HPP) in order to maximize profit margin". Many will claim competition will prevent that type of behavior. It can on simple products that are highly elastic (i.e., perfect markets like eggs). But the general rule in more complex purchases or imperfect markets is "LPQ@HPP". We see it all the time in real estate with builders cutting corners because most buyers cannot be supervising 24/7 and wouldn't know good quality from bad in many cases anyway. Builders in my area of Florida even developed the same mindset on cost cutting expenses, like never using double pane windows because "it is over kill insulation with our weather" - total bs but it allows for LPQ@HPP. In part, that is what building codes are put into effect to prevent, but they only work so far. With the recent boom and buyers willing to pay a lot for upgrades, insulated glass came back with many builders, but some - like SunRise Homes - still claims the overkill thing and now with the decline, the market for such glass is waning due to builder's "educating" their buyers against it.

Along with closing refineries to reduce supply, opening up the oil commodities market is driving up prices. Retirement funds and other big interest investors have to show a 4% margin to buy - much lower than other commodities - which is causing huge surges.

4% margin, how smart is that, sounds sub-prime to me

Oil supply is not down. In fact fields that should have dried up years ago according to original estimates, that have been pumped for 40 and 50 years years now have 2X the amount of reserves in them then they did when first tapped! The famous example is the well that ran dry off the Louisianna coast (Eugene Island 330) that then replenished itself and is pumping out as much oil as ever. But this field is not the exception, there are plenty like it around the globe. The oil fields are being filled from the bottom, which has created much speculation that oil reserves are exceptionally higher than ever thought, and now it is becoming a more widely accepted theory that oil is an inorganic compound created by the earth's churning at some of its deepest levels where it is continually replenished. When rising to the surface it picks up traces of organic material giving it a "stamp" of being organic when in fact it's not. Profits need to be maximized now before this is "common knowledge" and oil becomes more like eggs.

my bold, that is interesting, have not heard that theory before

I personally believe that we need to get away from oil for environmental reasons but that this shortage and price increase and the claim that the problem is environmental whackos won't let refineries be built, is a shell game by the oil companies looking to increase profits. And sure they testified under oath before congress, but so did big tobacco for years and years and years. Profits come first, everything else is last.

People wonder why we can't find this stuff in the main stream media. When "Conservative" ideals are left out, the right screams "Liberal Media", when "Progressive Ideas never get the time of day (a liberal friend once pointed out that if the media was liberal the news anchors would be hippy-like with t-shirts and jeans, not suits), the populists crowd shout "Conservative Bias". The truth is, though, the media is no different than the oil companies. Giant corporations running a non-perfect business model looking to maximize their profits, very often in their sister companies, by promoting their own interests. Okay there's my conspiracy rant.

my bold, hmm, kinda like lenders/mortgage companies running their own appraisal department and pressuring the appraisers to make the deals work.

http://okiedoke.com/blog/?p=2269

http://www.infowars.com/articles/economy/peak_oil_index.htm

1234567890

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

if refineries operate at near 100% capacity

that's like saying you never turn the engine off your car even when you have to refuel or change oil...refineries that run 85% of the time are nearer normal. Failure to maintain equipment was the problem at BPs refinery in Texas City that blew up. The largest refiner is Valero which is not a integrated multinational company. It refines. It has gas stations. It does not explore.

Oil companies are the ones responsible for shutting down refineries

Courts have also shut them down. Either in bankruptcy or for pollution. The Coffeyville refinery shut down due to a flood. Cushing, Ok, many other locations had old small refiners who could not compete against the larger refiners. They simply were not making money. The idea that oil companies shut down refineries to create shortage is preposterous. If there was money to be made, someone would build it.

The Saudis, thru their Basic Industries ministry is gearing to sell 'value added' oil to the world market and a lot of refined product is brought into this country.

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

Oil supply is not down. In fact fields that should have dried up years ago according to original estimates, that have been pumped for 40 and 50 years years now have 2X the amount of reserves in them then they did when first tapped! The famous example is the well that ran dry off the Louisianna coast (Eugene Island 330) that then replenished itself and is pumping out as much oil as ever. But this field is not the exception, there are plenty like it around the globe. The oil fields are being filled from the bottom, which has created much speculation that oil reserves are exceptionally higher than ever thought, and now it is becoming a more widely accepted theory that oil is an inorganic compound created by the earth's churning at some of its deepest levels where it is continually replenished. When rising to the surface it picks up traces of organic material giving it a "stamp" of being organic when in fact it's not. Profits need to be maximized now before this is "common knowledge" and oil becomes more like eggs.

I've never heard this. I hope its true.

I personally believe that we need to get away from oil for environmental reasons but that this shortage and price increase and the claim that the problem is environmental whackos won't let refineries be built, is a shell game by the oil companies looking to increase profits. And sure they testified under oath before congress, but so did big tobacco for years and years and years. Profits come first, everything else is last.

People wonder why we can't find this stuff in the main stream media. When "Conservative" ideals are left out, the right screams "Liberal Media", when "Progressive Ideas never get the time of day (a liberal friend once pointed out that if the media was liberal the news anchors would be hippy-like with t-shirts and jeans, not suits), the populists crowd shout "Conservative Bias". The truth is, though, the media is no different than the oil companies. Giant corporations running a non-perfect business model looking to maximize their profits, very often in their sister companies, by promoting their own interests. Okay there's my conspiracy rant.

Amen to that.