oil over $68 a barral

This link quickly made my bookmarks list. I visit it almost daily. The higher the price goes the better!

http://www.wtrg.com/daily/crudeoilprice.html

 

Here is another excellent site:

New York Mercantile Exchange

put your cursor over the little boxes above the chart and get a quick check on a number of different resource prices.

 

My family already thinks I'm nuts so my buying a Prius wasn't so out of character. The only comment I got was about the 'golf cart' from my brother. But when he was in town, then he wanted to see it and take a drive.

My sister says she'd love to have one but it's just too expensive. They haven't driven their cars into the ground yet so can't justify a new car purchase. Tonight my mother tells me their younger boy will be getting his license in about two years and they'll probably hand her car down to him and she'll buy a new one. I'm thinking.....if the new redesigned Prius is out in 2008-2009 I might be upgrading to that...and she can buy my used Prius. It won't be as great a deal as my old Saturn was, but it will be easier for her to afford than a new car. It will have low mileage and great maintenance, just like the Saturn did. We'll see.

I think my mother will be more receptive than my father. The Cadillac is starting to knock. She put premium in it when gas went down and the knocking stopped. Now she's sad because she has to go back to regular; can't afford to keep putting premium in the tank any more. I really think she would be open to a hybrid Camry when they come out. My Dad isn't anti-Toyota but he'd rather have a Lexus, which they can't afford to buy right now. The neighbor down the street has owned a string of Camry's and never had any problems with them. She's been in my Prius and loves the smooth drive. My Dad loves the mileage and economical maintenance. But the Camry will have to have leather interior, heated seats and the adjustable buttons the same as the Caddy or they'll wait and buy a Lexus.

Personally I'd like to see them in either a Prius or the hybrid Camry as I don't want to listen to the Caddy's list of things that no longer work or have to be fixed. Right now it's in bad need of new shocks.

 

If oil becomes too expensive we will enter another energy economy. Next up is LNG and the infrastructure is now being put in place. Actually, by buying Hummers instead of Prii we can hurry it along. Money controls EVERYTHING! But I am happy with my Prius and will replace it with another hybrid when the time comes.

 

Wake up folks, please!

The USA's, no, the entire world's, economies depend on having gobs of readily available petroleum-based energy. Every basic modern infrastructure depends on energy. Almost all our daily activities, all our consumer goods, all basic infrastructure support systems, depend on energy to make them work.

I hate to be an alarmist but think about it.

Chemical production plants make cholorine to treat drinking water supplies and fertilizers for farms, chemicals for sewage treatment plants, and provide raw materials for pharmaceutical companies. These chemical processes require lots of energy. Prices on everything, from basic utilities and health care, to the clothes you wear and the education your kids receive, would have to rise to follow the price of crude.

Can your local technology-driven hospital do without electricity? Or if its truck deliveries stop? How many days' stock does your grocery store carry? Every locomotive, truck, freighter, or plane carrying cargo depends on steady and cheap supplies of fuel.

The oil supply situation, and therefore the world's energy supplies, could well become dire within the next six months or less.

The situation in Nigeria is extremely troubling. Iraqi oil is not, and will not be for the foreseable future, flowing into the world market. The Saudi oil pumps are already running flat out. Iran doesn't need to build nuclear plants to produce energy. Iran has more than enough petroleum to meet the needs of the entire region. Iran wants fisionable material so it can build nuclear weapons, period. Argentina's amateur manager and president, Chavez, is indulging in foolish socialist games with its new-found oil money and playing footsie with the Chinese. Russia loves to hate the west. Indonesian oil is barely tapped. The US' own Gulf oil supplies remain halting, our largest refinery has been closed since Katrina. Alaska's north ridge oil fields are not going to save us. The earliest trickle might start in a minimum of three years. The gas in those same fields will not be deliverable for a minimum of ten years, if we started building (which the oil companies haven't agreed to do) a massive pipeline, today.

Worst case scenario, if just a couple major oil fields and/or supply lines come crashing down: $100-$110 per barrel, come April or May.

If all that happens (oh god no) owning Prii won't save any of our butts. It will mean major recession, inflation, stagflation, economic collapse, whatever you want to call it.

Dan, my engineer-geek, non-gambler husband, who has worked in the energy industry for over 25 years, is considering investing in oil futures. The day he does, I'll start laying aside a year's worth of food and water. Really. The flood waters are a'rising.

P.S. One warning sign: one of the new england states (MA?) is saying it will back out of the consortium of states that signed their own Kyoto agreement. It (the state) has run the numbers and decided it must burn coal in order to provide needed power to its citizens. So much for going green without doing the hard math first.

 

Excellent post Spunky... I thoroughly concur on every point!

... except this one - you mean Venezuala, right?

I'm not entirely fearful of a major economic slump - I've been through large ones before, living in Quebec most of my life (ok, ok, not Beirut - but Montreal in 1976 and 1986 were *completely* different cities!). What scares me a lot more than that is is more war - which I feel is regrettably inevitable before November 2008. Uh oh - I should stop before I get political

Dave

 

Oh, for crying...yes, I meant Venezuela. :huh: Maybe I need to stop PC'ing and get some sleep.

I worry about the people who will be forced to chose between buying heat or food and paying for air conditioning or medication. The poor always suffer the most when our (fat, stupid, intellectually lazy, corrupt, selfish, insert-insult-of-choice) bastards of leaders screw up.

Plus, an economy takes forever to recover from a major depression-like slump.

 

Arlington? Are you connected with the military in some way?

I wish the US would come clean and make our mission in the middle east one of stablizing the area because of the oil fields. Then all the BS surrounding the whole gamish would diminish.
I'm betting our soldiers would be just as willing to die, not for oil, but to defend and support the economy of the nation. Their commanders would be able to give commands that further a"clear" mission.
The country could debate if oil was worth the blood shed for it and agree to pursue energy conservation plans to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

I bet the Chinese will have no scruples about using their military when it comes to gathering critical oil supplies in the coming years. And since when has the US been squeamish about using soldiers to further political and economic agendae?

I've become cynical. I do need to get my sorry butt into bed.

 

Well, we blew it. Oil futures went up from $0.04 early last week to over $0.30 on Friday! Dan says we could have made $7M in four days but he hesitated and didn't immediately call the broker. Damnation!

We could have quit working and headed to Tuscany for a couple month's contemplation of what we wanted to do next.

P.S. Another warning sign: investors betting oil prices are going to skyrocket.

 

I find it interesting how Americans don't care that the greedy oil cos. made Billions of $$$ in the last quarter alone and we aren't concerned. Our whole economy is very sensitive to oil prices. Everything is going up because of the slime that dictates oil prices. I was an oil delivery person in 1974 when OPEC was formed. I watched fuel oil go from 12 cents/gal. to 60 cents/gal. that winter.

So, buying a Prius is a good thing, but as long as our people tolerate the selfish, self-serving so called people who dictate how much we are to be fleeced we are all doomed. I personally would have taken the oil from OPEC in 1974. It was only 1 or 2 $$ a barrel tops before they conspired to stick it to everyone.

None of these people need the money. Why does the every day "Joe" always pay the penalty so wealthy people can get wealthier? And "Joe" just mumbles "I guess I'll just have to pay it." Doesn't say much for backbone does it. :angry:

 

Well I know many will say you sound bitter... but thats the way it goes when you know the truth.

I too lived in Houston back in the oil shortage when prices were going crazy... only problem is, when I went to Galveston to go fishing... the oil tankers was parked at the Ship Channel stacked out to sea as far as the eye could see... till they disaapeared in the horizon as little dots.

Why were there so many?.... Texas City was full and they had no place to put thier oil till it could be relocated.
How big is the Texas City refinery? Well 20 years ago, you could drive 60mph for one hour in a straight line and still be in Texas city oil refineries and storage.

There is so much oil down there its rediculous... and they were full...... all the whiles the prices were going crazy because we had a fake "shortage"!

I've just seen the lies too many times!.........

The reality is they have us over a barrell "an oil barrell" and they fund the government almost like an oil mafia!.......

until we are free with power derived from sun, wind, and hydro, they will own us and we will be their slaves.


If they charge too much, they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs "thats us" so they milk us for all we will pay and call it "supply and demand"

When in reality "we demand it, and they supply it" ..... our live styles and structure is dependent upon transportation through the use of petrol.

You don't really believe what the media tells you about oil do you?...

What just happened a few months ago?.. All the whiles hurricaines were pounding the coastlines they used that as an excuse to say "we are out of oil, we have to raise the price".. the resulting profit was over 30 billion if I remember right... all on one quarter?

Where did all the profit come from?.. If I understand supply and demand properly.... if the supply dwindles the price goes up and you sell less "because you have less" and so you make the same as if you would have without the shortage?

The reality is that they sold just as much gas as they always did but at a much higher price per gallon....

If there was really a shortage, Why didn't it cost them more too?
If there was really a shortage, the higher prices per barrel was never reflected with the oil companies because "they" didn't have to pay it... only "we" did?

The market ran up on fear and unfounded rumours and so they got away with highway robbery.


So soon we have forgotten the oil demons... they got their hand slapped by congress and the prices dropped and now we praise them and dance in the streets at how low the prices are.... yuk.. the whole thing makes me sick.

the sentiment on the streets is "far too good" for oil prices to stay down... thats why they are going back up..."because we have been successfully brainwashed" in thier game of psychology and we think we are getting a bargain, so why not get prices back to reality and raise them close to 3.00/gal right?

If you know stocks at all you will know they study the sentiment index to determine whether the market can stand to to up more or down more.

 

I don't think this is a bitter remark, it is sad and it is truthful.

Gas jumped another 3 cents overnight. Over the last quarter when the poor individuals in New Orleans could not afford to leave the city and we all saw prices skyrocket on the whisper of barrel increases, the fat cats in these oil companies were rolling in the dough. I will never understand why these people want so much money. There is only so much any individual needs and I know it is a socialist view but there should be some regulation of these hogs just as the government steps in for certain workplace strikes.

Course the government and other stockholders got rich on these gluttonous activities and as long as we are willing to sell each other out for personal gain then we get what we get.

 

People think Enron was an isolated case.... yea like watergate was! :lol: :lol:

They just got so stupid and relaxed, they finally got caught or pissed the wrong person off.

The corruptions runs deep!... why?... money is involved!..

Money is power, respect, fear, security, and pride.... money makes the world go round.

The older I get, I start to understand more why the "love" of money is the "root" of all evil.

It still hasn't changed in 2000 years.

The Oil companies work much like Enron did ..its all about image, lies and deception... reality means little...... its the perception of the truth is what makes money and they can manipulate that.

 

I do a lot of embedded programming for industrial devices used in petrochemicals. I'd like to modify your paragraph.

It isn't so much the *energy* but the fact that "only" around 50% of crude is used for transportation. A massive amount of petroleum is used for critical raw feedstocks, for many industries.

You mentioned chlorine, that can be split from NaCl. NH3 - commonly used as a fertilizer - is derived from petroleum.

I have read some replies that are either simplistic or outright ignorant, suggesting that once the petroleum is cut off or runs out, we can then easily find substitutes. Where do you think the alkanes, alkenes, and cycloalkanes come from?

Through a process known as "catalytic isomerization," straight chain alkanes are turned into branched chain alkanes. Further processing - cracking - converts higher alkanes into smaller alkanes and alkenes.

The alkenes are critical raw feedstocks for synthesis of aliphatic compounds. The alkanes and cycloalkanes are converted - through catalytic reforming - into aromatic hydrocarbons, another critical feedstock for the chemical industry.

The first step to further processing of these feedstocks are halogenation, chlorination, and bromination steps, eg to make isomers. As an example, an alkane can be sent through chlorination or bromination to give an alkyl chloride.

I find it insane that such large amounts of petroleum are being wasted on gas guzzling transportation. The petroleum feedstocks have critical - indeed *tactical* and strategic - importance to us as fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, chemical processing, etc.

 

So true. The barter system was so useful in the past but not possible in todays world.
Money sucks as it IS necessary but it IS evil and often brings out the worse in people.

 

That’s a good observation. One thing we have to keep in mind is the *slope* of the demand and supply curve.

For things like illicit narcotics and petroleum, the demand curve is almost a vertical line. In other words, demand varies relatively minor amounts despite very large changes to price: the *quantity demanded* remains fairly consistent .

And I won’t even get into what happens when the entire curve is moved, eg a new price to demand/supply setpoint.

I remember when I lived in Utah in the 1990’s and a gallon of regular unleaded could easily be found at truckstops for 92 cents a gallon. Despite the price more than doubling, has quantity demanded fallen to one half? Of course not.

The oligopoly and price-fixing cartel known as the oil companies know this. They can easily raise prices 20-40% and realize enormous profits, as quantity demanded remains unchanged or only falls slightly.

 

Canada's Oil Reserves 2nd only to Saudi Arabia.

There will be oil for the next century but it will take the pushing up of the price of oil to match that needed to make getting oil out of the Canadian tar sands profitable. Canada is sitting on more oil than Saudia Arabia when you include the tar sands but it is way more expensive to process than merely sucking it out of the ground.

Somewhere there must be some insight into what that price is. I just haven't been able to find it on the Internet.

Anyone know?

 

One of the reasons there are no substitutes for anything is the lack of incentive to find any. As long as oil is cheap (or oil is available) there still is no incentive.

The problem as I see it is we'll drag our heels and delay until it's too late to find another way.

I'm reminded of an old Gary Larsen comic where two scientists are standing in front of a board full of equations with a big "And then a miracle happens here" near the end.

I don't think we can count on any miracles, but that's exactly how we're acting.

 

I think the more important question about the tar sands in Canada is the Political question. A lot of Canadians are ticked off right now, you are aware that today - Jan 23, 2006 - was a Federal election? Looks like another Minority government.

Anyway, the Paul Martin Liberal gov allowed the sale of most of the tar sands rights to a Chinese company. Not like anybody else can touch it anyway.