Posted on 09/21/2005 11:56:05 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Oil refiner Motiva is moving forward with a $3.8 billion plan to double the capacity of its Port Arthur refinery, city officials say
Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz said he received word of the plan Wednesday. That would increase the refinery's capacity from 285,000 barrels per day to as much as 570,000 barrels, making it larger than Exxon Mobil's Baytown refinery, which is currently the biggest in the country. A Motiva spokesman couldn't confirm what the mayor had heard, but he said the company is starting a process engineering study to find a Gulf refinery to expand.
Motiva is a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal spoke of refining at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy on Wednesday, although he did not confirm Motiva's plan for expansion.
He did say that earlier Wednesday he received word that the kingdom will be building two new refineries in Saudi Arabia with a capacity to process 800,000 barrels of oil a day.
"Every tragic incident in the Middle East has become an opportunity for traders to put a bigger premium on oil," he said.
The real problem, he said, is not crude oil supply, but the world's capacity to refine it into useful fuels, including gasoline.
The prince also said Saudi Arabia would join the World Trade Organization, which would allow a private company to own a refinery in the kingdom outright, without partnering with a Saudi company.
tom.fowler@chron.com
Yes.
We need to start drilling on U.S. soil for oil.
_________________________________________
Companies seek oil-shale leases
Shell and Exxon Mobil are among the concerns applying for federal land to research production.
By Mike Soraghan
Denver Post Staff Writer
Washington - Shell, Chevron and Exxon Mobil are among the companies that have asked for 19 federal leases to research turning oil shale into oil in Colorado and neighboring states, the Bureau of Land Management said Tuesday.
Of the 19 requests, 10 are for parcels on Colorado's Western Slope, eight are for Utah sites and one is for a Wyoming site.
Other companies that have applied for research leases in Colorado are EGL Resources Inc., Independent Energy Partners, Kennecott Exploration Co., Natural Soda Inc. and Phoenix Wyoming Inc.
The 160-acre research tracts on federal lands could be converted to 5,100-acre production leases if companies prove they can turn rock into fuel.
"We recognize the importance of making public lands available to promote all forms of energy, including oil shale, but in a way that provides for prudent site selection and sound environmental management," BLM Assistant Director Tom Lonnie said.
A BLM team will start in late October to evaluate each proposal on its potential to advance shale technology, economics and environmental effects, then make recommendations about awarding leases.
Geologists say up to 1 trillion barrels of oil lie bound in the 1,000-foot-thick shale formations of western Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
That's as much as the rest of the world's proven oil reserves combined.
Currently, Shell is working on private land to perfect a process in which oil is cooked out of the rock while it is still in the ground.
Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com.
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_3047162
We certainly do. I'd just love to see OPEC get a pinch in its side.
Brazil did this once before until Reagan deregulated and oil went back to $11 a barrel. At $25 a bbl or more, ethanol works.
Don't forget offshore of the US from Florida to Maine and California to Washington.
Oh great.... Well, they may have plenty of need for construction equipment there soon anyway.
I think--and don't have the citation this early, but will try later--that ethanol was just shown to be a major scam by a major, unbiased analysis. It seems that there is more energy put into growing, harvesting, and transporting the crops, in addition to producing the ethanol, than ethanol produces. There is actually an energy loss in using ethanol. The only justification now is emissions--and, of course, political pork.
I know this is probably out of the question but, How about Hemp oil. Hemp plants supposedly yield more oil per bushel than any other crop and take up less space.
Good news that they plan a refinery---real BAD news on the location. Port Arthur is just about as vulnerable to a "Katrina type" storm surge event as St. Bernard Parish.
>>>The real problem, he said, is not crude oil supply, but the world's capacity to refine it into useful fuels, including gasoline.
Very true. Also, the upside to our recent hurricane problems is that this refinery should find plenty of people looking for well paid work in that area of the country.
Just think of the byproducts.
No, the scam is the opposite. The scam is trying to get it in everybody's mind that ethanol doesn't work. It's been proven to work in Brazil, for YEARS! I can produce ethanol in my back yard for less than a dollar a gallon using refined sugar. It's even cheaper if you use raw feed stock.
The scam is the same as trying to say raising taxes helps the deficit. It has been proven over and over that cutting taxes helps and raising them hurts. But right now, as we speak, half the country believes we have to raise taxes to fix all our problems.
Ethanol is probably the closest thing to perfect we have right now. Exxon doesn't want it, you can guess why. The gubmint doesn't want it because they are afraid you will take a slug without paying the tax, simple as that. The gubmint will always say it has to be mixed with gas, or some other chemical to make it non drinkable. Also you will hear the name "Archer Daniel Midland" mentioned over and over as they spit as if Exxon was somehow a better alternative. Just look at what people have done to the name "Halliburton". ADM is into corn ethanol mostly. ADM couldn't control it because anybody can make it in their back yard. Just say use everything but corn if you want to, it doesn't matter. Sugar is the easy way and you can get it from nearly any carbohydrate.
The argument I made remains unrefuted: ethanol costs more in energy expenditure than it affords. It is a major scam, no matter how loudly you decry that description.
With ethanol you might get 220,000 btu's per bushel if you spend twice that much energy to make it.
Ironically, if you just burn the original bushel of corn, you get 465,000 btu's.
Why expand now, when you can wait a couple of days and rebuild entirely.
There's no such thing as an unbiased analysis. They will always spin their point of view. If it was impractical, Brazil would give up.
You're right--unbiased analyses are few and far between. That's why we publish the numbers so that they can be reviewed, criticized, and, if possible, replicated (or not).
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