$100 A Barrel Oil is on the Way

#201
#201
BigPapaVol said:
the supply v demand argument just hasn't ever worked for you. I don't get it. You want oil to be a government supplied or overregulated commodity. How does that make any sense?

The day the market stops buying oil at the price being asked is the day that the oil companies have to find a way to make it cheaper. It's no secret that they operate off of a fixed %. As oil gets more expensive, they make more gross profit. Asking them to arbitrarily lower their spread is effectively socialism.
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IMO free markets only work when consumers have a choice. But its not a choice anymore to use gasoline, everyone needs it. It's reached the level of food, water, and shelter as a necessity.

My arguement was that the consumer would be better served if refineries were owned by municipalities like the way potable water is. Or a cooperative where profits are shared among the people who buy the gasoline.

The current situation mainly benefits the oil companies. I'm not argueing that the price of a barrel of oil isn't set by the market. I'm talking about refining gasoline and bringing it to the consumer. It's a very profitable business, and with no new refineries there is not much competition. What is the choice for the consumer? There's not much pressure on them to lower prices, the consumers have to have gasoline. It's not a good model for the consumer.
 
#202
#202
oklavol said:
IMO free markets only work when consumers have a choice. But its not a choice anymore to use gasoline, everyone needs it. It's reached the level of food, water, and shelter as a necessity.
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Smart people will not die without gasoline. Take away the others and no IQ is safe.

oklavol said:
It's a very profitable business, and with no new refineries there is not much competition. What is the choice for the consumer? There's not much pressure on them to lower prices, the consumers have to have gasoline. It's not a good model for the consumer.
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I would not call it "very profitable" unless you only look at the big numbers. There are many large companies that make a much larger profit % than any oil companies.
 
#203
#203
I agree with utvolpj- as a species, we were fine before oil and we'll be fine after oil (assuming we don't completely obliterate each other trying to get the last drops.....)

We've advanced to a point in which we have the capacities to create a new fuel source to replace oil. I just wish we would speed it up now, instead of when we REALLY start to feel shortage pangs.
 
#204
#204
SWIL said:
We've advanced to a point in which we have the capacities to create a new fuel source to replace oil. I just wish we would speed it up now, instead of when we REALLY start to feel shortage pangs.
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We made it to the moon in a few years just to pissoff the Soviets. What better way to do it to our new "enemies" than to get ourselves off the only product they sell. Sort of like an economic a-bomb.
 
#205
#205
there are many things you can do if you feel you are being killed by oil prices. carpool, public transit, get rid of your truck, ride a bike to work (as sarcastically said earlier), etc etc etc. the fact that so many people are still driving to and from work every day tells you the oil price isn't high enough to discourage consumption.
 
#206
#206
There was an explosion at a Texas refinery this morning....it looks like there's a huge fire rolling out of the place. The refinery is just north of I-20 near Midland ... I don't know if it is a big refinery or not. I wonder if this will put a crunch on gasoline....or diesel/jet fuel, etc.?

Edit: It sounds like they process 70,000 bbl of crude a day...
 
#208
#208
oklavol said:
IMO free markets only work when consumers have a choice. But its not a choice anymore to use gasoline, everyone needs it. It's reached the level of food, water, and shelter as a necessity.

My arguement was that the consumer would be better served if refineries were owned by municipalities like the way potable water is. Or a cooperative where profits are shared among the people who buy the gasoline.

The current situation mainly benefits the oil companies. I'm not argueing that the price of a barrel of oil isn't set by the market. I'm talking about refining gasoline and bringing it to the consumer. It's a very profitable business, and with no new refineries there is not much competition. What is the choice for the consumer? There's not much pressure on them to lower prices, the consumers have to have gasoline. It's not a good model for the consumer.
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One could say the same about being ripped-off by the medical profession/Insurance companies. Talk about having no choice, it might be a matter of life or death.
 
#209
#209
TennTradition said:
There was an explosion at a Texas refinery this morning....it looks like there's a huge fire rolling out of the place. The refinery is just north of I-20 near Midland ... I don't know if it is a big refinery or not. I wonder if this will put a crunch on gasoline....or diesel/jet fuel, etc.?

Edit: It sounds like they process 70,000 bbl of crude a day...
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these refinery's explode all the time. scary really.
 
#214
#214
70,000 BPD refinery isnt huge.

Now is the time refiners do maintance for the summer driving season, so this doesnt help.

Sunoco is about to announce the sale of their tulsa, OK refinery and its 90k BPD. Rumors have it going for 1.2 Billion, to put into perspective.

$10,000 per BPD is what the normal refinery goes for.

We really need to get cars to run on Natural Gas.
 
#215
#215
VolsNSkinsFan said:
70,000 BPD refinery isnt huge.

Now is the time refiners do maintance for the summer driving season, so this doesnt help.

Sunoco is about to announce the sale of their tulsa, OK refinery and its 90k BPD. Rumors have it going for 1.2 Billion, to put into perspective.

$10,000 per BPD is what the normal refinery goes for.

We really need to get cars to run on Natural Gas.
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I'm not sure that natural gas is a more stable commodity....

Who is buying the refinery? Is Koch industries looking to pick up any new refineries?
 
#216
#216
Nat Gas is cheap right now compared to Oil and is much cleaner.


Husky Energy, a canadian company, is the rumored buyer.
 
#220
#220
VolsNSkinsFan said:
Still cheap when compared to the price of Oil on a historical basis.


It is very volatile, so I get your point.
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well oil and gas prices do tend to trade together a bit because natural gas is a natural product of oil production. it's definetly a lot cleaner than oil though.
 
#221
#221
droski said:
well oil and gas prices do tend to trade together a bit because natural gas is a natural product of oil production. it's definetly a lot cleaner than oil though.
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You take a huge penalty when liquefying the natural gas for automobile fuel that is less than the penalty of distilling gasoline from oil, I think. I haven't looked at the numbers in a while, but it "seems" right...anyone know? While this doesn't hurt the cleaner aspect ... it certainly hurts the bottom line of cost.
 
#222
#222
In a quick look at the numbers this afternoon, it began to seem like compressing natural gas for a compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel doesn't incur too much of an energy penalty. If the fuel has to be liquefied for shipment and then vaporized to the desired compression pressure, then this can be costly - but still not too bad.

From my calculations, it seemed like that the worst part would be having to have a 20 gallon tank on a car and still having to stop to fill up 3 times more than you would with a 13 gallon tank today with gasoline. That's assuming you have about 200 bar gas pressure at maximum fill, which although I think is high - apparently is feasible from a safety perspective.
 
#225
#225
volinbham said:
Egghead :p
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I was surprised that the numbers weren't worse then they were, though. I think that if I have enough time, I might adjust some of my assumptions and see how sensitive the results are to those. However the calcs may be right - or else you probably wouldn't see bus fleets using CNG.
 
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