Crude Oil Prices Soar Near $60 a Barrel

gee Godiva... if i had to judge by actions alone, i would have to say that elected officials i am familiar with are doing a great job of supporting their corporate sponsors

some actually help out the people in the state they represent... mostly by accident or coincidence. like the unnamed senator from alaska (i refuse to say it) who headed the pork barrel committee and had nearly 20% of all projects going to his state. i guess the residents of the state may benefit a bit, but lets face it, its the big business there that will rake in the real money

 

I don't know Godiva... IMO, 90-96% capacity utilization to me at least (as a non-expert) sounds fairly impressive.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petrole...pdf/table02.pdf

How many wind farms forinstance can pump out power at such an efficiency? Even nuclear?

IMO, it's not a fair interpretation of things to just Bash Bush because he's not refining enough oil and then in the next sentence, oppose Bush to expand refining..

I hear your sentiments and believe me, if I could replace all fossil fuel/nuclear industry tomorrow with wind, solar and wave, I'd do it... but I just feel it's also important to argue from an open and fair perspective in order to best strategize the transformation we deeply desire.

No offence please, as I respect your views and just wanted to be the counter advocate

-Jeffco

 

we have refineries at or near production with none being built because it cost 2-3 billion to build one and oil companies are not building them. in fact, the number of refineries has dropped quite a bit in the last 20 years or so.

reasons why? why build a factory to refine something that is increasingly hard to get? obviously a new refinery operating anywhere near capacity would pay for itself very quickly. so the investment aint the problem. its simply done to artificially inflate prices by restricting supply and because oil companies know that oil is a dying quail.

 

Has anyone noticed that my prediction is still proving itself? Oil closed above 60$ for one day and has since made the expected correction downwards. It is now four dollars below it's high of earlier in the week.

It will end up near 50 in the not too distant future. Gasoline will not cross the 3$ mark nationally this year.

 

Dave,

I'm just not sure how to assess the bottom line vis-a-vis reasons: to refine more or to not refine more..

I just can't concur with your main thesis however, that somehow oil is drying up, thus causing good reason for price-hikes and good reason for not building more refinery cap...but also; some world industry conspiracy exists, to reduce the supply and thus cause more price-hikes.

It seems like this thinking is just too simplistic imo, and perhaps slightly contradicting?

I mean, given your assumption, wouldn't it just be a slam-dunk for a competing foreign consortium to pick up the ball and build more refinery slack (if it's such a sure profit) and then just sell more refined gas to US markets and abroad??

I know, that just sounds too simple as well... so in the mean time... I'm promoting Hybrids, wind, wave and most of all: C O N S E R V A T I O N!

Yea, that means easy goin on the "MPG Maintenance" drives!! lol

 

Saudi Arabia offered to build a super refinery at their expense on US soil and was turned down.

i think it has more to do with the fact that other countries energy needs now need to be taken into account and no one sees us increasing the out take from the ground enough to satisfy those needs and keep everyone running at capacity.

 

I hear you Dave (I'd be interested to read the particulars on that Saudi offer) but it's still too simplistic, imo.

Qatar is building massive NG refinery infrastructure on their soil in conjuction w/western investment-ventures.

Why doesn't another competing consortium just build new oil refinery infrastructure on foreign soil then (perhaps with joint US company investment)? If it's such a sure profit in 'no time at all?'

Again...even this suggestion is over-simplified I know.

 

No matter what the oil prices are not going down, the U.S. demand for oil is becoming a strategic problem. It would be best if we developed refining capacity and also more production, but at this point conserving and finding smart ways to use less is the wisest course. There is no down point to that, and it sure makes the environmentalists very happy too. We are too dependent on outside sources of energy, and can lose control of our own country if this trend continues.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories.../17/focus3.html

orginally in an article in US news and world report released several years ago, the US said the Saudis couldnt build a refinery that would process high sulfur fuel without putting extra polution into the air.

well the Saudis built one in france (i think. cant find the article but was in europe somewhere) that had to meet tougher restrictions than the US standards. so that arguement is out the window. now they say there is nt enough margin to make it profitable.

TOTAL BULL imho... but just an opinion.

 

Dave,

Regardless of what Saudi's constructed in Europe a few years ago, or what they proposed to build here, isn't really my discussion or question.

Simply: would you/we therefor support W Bush tomorrow, if he announced an executive order (just for argument) to expand capacity and have at least one new refinery constructed on a former military base, (for example) ASAP! ?

Personally, I'd hope no competitor would build new refineries elsewhere around the globe (assuming it's such a sure profit), thus providing more supply and hypothetically lowering price.

I'd support more conservation (including fewer 'maintenance drives' lol), better efficiency and new technologies/incentives/investments.

Thus, the Prius et al are a superb short/mid-term solution..no question!

 

would i? yes i would if if were designed to process high sulfur oil, but i would prefer that someone else pay for it.

increasing reifnery capacity would lower the price of oil. the other option would be to raise the price of gas so that other car manufacturers would be forced to produce efficient cars now instead of waiting 15 years for hydrogen.

but as we know, that method hasnt got a snowballs chance in h*** of working

 

No question, reduction of consumption is the answer there. As for the car makers, they just need to get with it and make more cars like the Prius concept., have to agree there, period.

 

Ditto!
Reducing consumption is important for national security reasons.
Building new refineries will only discourage conservation by bringing gas prices back down. I'd actually like to see the cost of gas artificailly inflated to speed up the process and also to act as a buffer against price spikes. The inflated cost can be eliminated when the real cost jumps up. Sort of how Greenspan increases/decreases the interest rate to control inflation and economic growth.

 

Interesting concept there Darwood..How about using a mileage tax like Oregon..Actually Oregon should use an MPG tax., the better the less tax, but that would hurt too much money wise that is...

 

lets give kudos to Sen Maria Cantwell for her bill proposing reducing imports of oil by 40% by 2020. unfortunately many viewed it as a backdoor implementation of CAFE and it failed.

but it was encouraging as it lost by a much smaller margin than most expected signifying that sentiment is changing in government. 4 years ago, anything to do with CAFE would never have made it past the proposal stage.

 

Mileage tax would be good in concept, but somewhat unfeasable. mileage among different vehicles are not in clear cut brackets, but would fall into a typical bell curve. Car makers would design all their cars to just barely make it into a particular bracket. There are also differences in milage within a particular make/model depending on options. You can't generalize any vehicle's mileage. You could just buy an economy car and swap out the engine.
Plus, the same tax should affect fuel used by things like lawn mowers (no mileage), or boats (which track hours of usage, not miles), or generators.

It's just a lot simpler to raise the gas price. Than the free market will respond naturally. That's what happened in the 70's during the oil embargo. By preemtively raising the cost, we can slowly adapt and reduce our dependency on oil as opposed to waiting for another crises to catch us off gaurd.

 

I completely agree with Darwood's post.

And I'd like to add that an added tax on fuel can be seen as a way to make the price more accurately match the actual cost. When you take in the environmental, health, energy company subsidies, and military costs, the price would be much higher than it is today in the US. Shifting to a more pay-as-you-go model would encourage people to use fuel more efficiently. In the current system the consumer pays for much of the cost of energy through sources such as income taxes, which encourages waste because the more enegry they use the better deal they get.

 

Today's oil closing price = $61.28, but the real scary item is the gasoline futures, which closed up $.1082 per gallon. Give your Prius a little pat on the nose tonight 'cause the big bumpy ride is coming!

 

Yea definetly the cure all in any situation is to just raise taxes. I say raise taxes as folllows:

1) fast food
2) soda's
3) cigarettes (more)
4) liquor (more)
5) older cars (higher taxes at registration each yr)
6) failing to use mass transit
7) pleasure craft and vehicles
8) SUV's
9) private airplanes, jet planes and business planes
10) non organic foods
11) refined sugar
12) coffee
13) contact sports
14) hunting (more taxes)
15) extravagant homes and living
16) extravagant incomes

Taxes always solve problems, big government is good, and really everyone should be equal.