Posted on 09/27/2008 1:24:11 PM PDT by Mike Fieschko
The long lines and closed pumps seen across the South this week are a warning: inventories are way too low.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- ... That's because nationwide our gasoline inventory is shockingly low. Liquidity must be restored soon to this market, or we could be facing a crippling run on the gasoline bank. ...
... In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue got a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily allow stations to sell high-sulfur gasoline. ...What's going on? The immediate answer is that the double whammy of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which swept through the Gulf of Mexico earlier this month, caused much of the Gulf's oil drilling and refinery production to be shut down. In particular Ike, which hit refinery-rich Southeastern Texas on Sept. 13, caused massive power outages in the Galveston and Houston areas.
As of this week, more than a dozen refineries around Texas City and Port Arthur were not operating at full capacity and, according to the Department of Energy, six refineries, with a combined capacity of 1.6 million barrels a day, were still not running at all.
... the severity of the problem points out a bigger issue: The U.S. has been operating for a while with razor-thin spare gasoline capacity.In its most recent Weekly Oil Data Review, Barclays Capital pointed out that the U.S. gasoline inventory has reached its lowest level since August 1967, when demand was a little more than half its current level of 9.3 million barrels a day. At 178.7 million barrels, inventories are 21.6 million barrels below their five-year average.
... Getting back to a safer level of extra capacity isn't simple, either. Once the refineries get back up and running, they'll drain the already low crude oil inventories. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
And yet Obama’s highest priority is early childhood education.
Hey Rats, are there hurricanes in ANWR, or in the oil shale regions?
San Angelo, TX, gas prices are the lowest in some time - $3.419 this morning. Apparently the news hasn’t reached us yet.
I’ve always been an advocate of if we invade it we keep it!
Oil problem solved...
Joy. Can we have Commander Cobra attack NYC as well. This is gonna be a crazy Winter for gas, election, and the economy.
I still have all my hurricane gasoline (stabilized) stash from this spring. I guess I’ll keep it on hand through the winter too.
On a news segment there was a guy in Tennessee whose area had no gas, who had to go to Kentucky to get gas. Unsaid was why there was gas in Kentucky, and why couldn't Tennessee get some of that?
I wish there were more publicity about the Democrats/liberals/enviro crazies ideas.
They are against building more refineries
They are against more domestic oil drilling
They are against nuclear power
They are against more hydroelectric projects
They are against more use of coal, even the newest “clean coal” technology isn’t good enough for them.
They are against oil shale development
They are against so many things that could help. They are worshipping at the altar of Al Gore and a pollution free future of solar energy, but we’re not going to be there anytime soon. And in the meantime they would rather do nothing than do anything that can help us with our energy problems.
We’re almost in the middle of it, in northwestern NC, but you can still buy gas for as low as $3.55, price has fallen since the worst of it, right after the storm. Finding a station that has any is the problem. It’s the strangest thing.
# Summer-blend gas. The Environmental Protection Agency can fine a service station $27,500 a day for selling winter-blend fuel after May 1, so the switch has to begin now. Fuel evaporates into the air and pollutes it easier in hot weather, so summer gas is made to compensate.But there are more than 100 types of summer fuel across the USA. Some, such as in the Midwest, require ethanol — grain alcohol — to support area farmers. Ethanol must be mixed locally and distributed by trucks. If an ethanol plant or a refinery supplying the special gas to blend with ethanol has trouble, there's an immediate shortage threat, and prices spike.
Last Aug. 14, for instance, the Lemont refinery outside Chicago caught fire, stopping production of fuel needed for the area's unique ethanol blend. By Aug. 16, the average wholesale price there jumped 12.1 cents a gallon, and pump prices averaged 12 cents higher than the day before the fire.
Yeah, people may be sitting in lines up the interstate ramp, but at least there’s no price gouging! I feel so much better ...
Yeah, everybody did drop back to $3.99 at most, after the specter of prosecution for gouging was raised. Didn’t do much for supply, did it?
Soemthing fishy going on here. If I lived in Florida, I think I´d start using bicycles, the land being so flat and all. It would do the obese crowd many wonders! And Florida has a lot of couch potatoes.... Pot belly´s and all.
Not to be rude but...duh.
And nobody is allowed to find out either.. NOBODY..
Actually the entire east coast is off limits..
There could be more oil and gas there than California has.. but won't drill for either..
Wonder if we could "TRICK" some terrorists to go after the federal politicians.. and clean Washington D.C. up.. COuld be WHY there has been no terrorist attacks in the U.S...
The terrorists ARE AFRAID of killing some of our federal politicians.. who are our worse enemies of ALL... Obviously they are not stupid.. I hear them now.. For allahs sake don't harm a democrat.. those people are toxic..
I thought that the Bush administration proposed fast tracking the build process by allowing refineries to be built on decommissioned military bases - which would allow the environmental permitting to be streamlined or bypassed. I have lost track of where that idea went to die.
I’m going to have to give Anoreth $30 and stick her in a gas station line early next week. It’s either that or drive her back and forth to school in the van, which has a full tank.
NO gas here in Atlanta. Slim as heck on regular with long lines and no prem or mid.
We are sitting all weekend and being domestic. First time I have ever heard a Sat. in my neighborhood with no lawnmowers.
They’re going to have to start setting up cots in the hallway soon, if somethind doesn’t give. I’ve read of 40% absenteeism due to inability to get gasoline.
Your answer is in this EPA waiver:
On August 29,2008, to alleviate gasoline shortages created by the extensive mandatory and voluntary evacuations preceding the landfall of Hurricane Gustav, I waived federal regulations requiring low volatility gasoline in Louisiana. Since that time, the shutdowns of several Gulf area petroleum refineries and widespread power outages in the Louisiana area caused by Hurricane Gustav have resulted in the curtailment in the production and delivery of low volatility gasoline to the fuel pipelines originating in the Gulf area that serve each of your states. On September 4' and 5', I received requests made by you, or on your behalf, for a waiver under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to address a fuel supply emergency caused by Hurricane Gustav.Notice the waiver expired Sept 15.In response to those requests, EPA has determined, and the Umted States Department of Energy (DOE) concurs, that it is necessary to take action to minimize or prevent disruption of an adequate supply of gasoline in those portions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and North Carolina in which low volatility gasoline is required. By this letter, I am granting a waiver of those low volatility requirements, as described below. As you know, regulations promulgated under the Clean Air Act require gasoline sold in portions of Louisiana and North Carolina to have maximum Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) of 7.8 pounds per square inch (psi) during the "high ozone" season, through September 15,2008. See 40 C.F.R. 4 80.27. In addition, gasoline sold in the Atlanta, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama areas are required to have a maximum RVP of 7.0 psi through September 15,2008, and gasoline sold in the Atlanta area is also required to meet additional sulfur averaging requirements, under the State Implementation Plan (SIP) for those States. See 66 Fed. Reg. 47142 (Alabama) and 67 Fed. Reg. 8200 (Georgia).
“In particular Ike, which hit refinery-rich Southeastern Texas on Sept. 13, caused massive power outages in the Galveston and Houston areas”
Ike was a massive storm. It didn’t just affect Houston and Galveston, there is huge disruption into southwest Louisiana.
Folks in the northeast may not realize the vast areas this affected.I would welcome them to come drive I-10 from Houston to Baton Rouge
It’s odd! Here in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio, gas is $3.39.9 today. Yet a steel guitar newsletter from Nashville says that they’re out of gas down there!
“It’s the strangest thing”
How many of your neighbors went down and filled up every container they could lay their hands on? That was rampant here in west Tennessee.
We cancelled our choir practice on Wednesday because we had members out of gas. And there was more available then.
What, no molotov cocktails to burn down their own neighborhoods after the anointed one loses
See my post #13 and 25
“Yeah, people may be sitting in lines up the interstate ramp, but at least there’s no price gouging! I feel so much better ..”
Define price gouging
We’re okay here in California. I will say all this talk makes me glad that we have a Prius. We didn’t get it for the environment. My husband just likes hybrids for their technology and the way they drive. We’re on our 2nd Prius.
I’m jealous of my husband because he rarely fills his gas tank, and when he does it’s only 11 gallons.
I drive a mini-van, and I fill it up more than once a week and it cost me around $75 each time.
I drive more than my husband because I drive kids around. I guess we get into a gas shortage, I would probably start driving the Prius. I can’t take any extra kids and stuff, but I can get my own kids around to and from their activities.
The state defines price gouging in their anti-price-gouging statute. You can google it if you want.
Ike made landfall on a Thursday evening, no lines, no panic buying ... nothing. Recall that there were dire predictions for the previous week (Fay?), and there was no supply problem, with prices falling continually throughout that time. Friday morning, no problems, no lines, prices the same to a few cents lower. Then, bam, midmorning, lines began to form, people took time off from work to fill up, lines into the evening, stations ran out, with some still out. That all calmed down for almost a week, and then it began again, the whole nine yards, fights, long lines. I have a 32 mile commute, one way, a mix of suburban and urban. I’d say over 3/4 of the gas stations are out of gas along that route as of yesterday. I’ve been topping off my tank to make sure I can keep going. I guess that makes me a part of the problem. But, what else can you do? Stand on principle, refuse to make sure you have gas when it’s in short supply, and join the people who are missing work or school, because they didn’t plan ahead? It’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Link below to U.S. gasoline inventory as of 9-19. U.S. consumption of petroleum is down 3 percent so far over 2007.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_gasoline.html#production
My energy policy from a couple of months ago:
Okay here is my energy policy (from a post of mine about a month ago):
OIL- Drill anywhere and everywhere we think there is recoverable oil. Screw Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council. Oil drilling does not hurt the enviroment anyway. It has a VERY small footprint.
Bio-Fuels- NO! Unless we can made cellulosic ethanol work with bio material NOT used for food.
CTL (coal-to-liquid) - YES! We are going to have to do this anyway so why not get started now. It is expensive but we know this works. With oil at $130 ($104 now) a barrel it is very viable.
GTL (gas-to-liquid) YES! Same as CTL above.
NUCLEAR- YES! YES! YES! We need a ambitious program NOW!
SOLAR- YES, if it can survive without subsidies.
WIND- YES (see SOLAR above).
HYDROGEN- Off in the distant future. Keep research going. If there is a breakthrough then fantastic. However we cannot depend on a breakthrough. We need Nuclear Power to get the hydrogen by cracking H2O.
NATURAL GAS- We should not build any more plants that use Nat Gas to generate electricity. Let’s replace these plants with Nuclear Power Plants. Using Nat Gas to generate electricity is the biggest waste of fuel imaginable. Nat Gas is way too valuable to be used for electricity production. We should use Nat Gas for Industrial Purposes, Heating, cooking food, etc. We have enormous supplies of Nat Gas in Alaska. We can bring them down to the West Coast via LNG Tankers. We should build 5 LNG facilities on the West Coast; Seattle, Portland, SF Bay Area, Los Angeles/Long Beach. In fact let’s put the LA facility at Malibu just for fun of it. If we can do these things then we can break out of this morass. We need leadership and we will not get it from Obama. We will not get it from Democrats.
I’m in the hills of Tennessee and have been seeing a lot of bicycles on the road. The town I work in built several miles of paved bike and walking trails for people to walk or ride bikes to work and for pleasure.
Since I live way out in the country I can’t ride to town (yet) but I’ve been riding to get in shape. So has my husband. Once I can easily ride up the hills and ride faster than dogs can chase me I’m going to ride my bike more than I drive. Saddle horses and horses pulling wagons are common here and are legal in the city limits. I saw a horse and rider in the drive-thru at Hardees the other day. :-)
I’ve been seeing people on bicycles pulling little wagons behind them to go shopping. Today we saw a young couple pulling a wagon full of groceries home from the store by hand. We have parked our vehicles and only go to work and back or to the store once a week. I can still afford to buy gas but I’ll be darned if I’m going to pay twice what it’s worth!
We are having and old-timey gas war here in Mississippi. Gas is $3.10 per gallon.
Thanks, but we have plenty of gas.
Hmm... I recall reading something in the past year or two that sounded similar, only it was the old EPA Superfund cleanup sites that had been proposed as new refinery sites. Seems that quite a few such sites had been refineries in the past (Hudson Oil is one that sticks in my memory), and the EPA had been working on returning those sites to commercial use.
Makes perfect sense to me; all the baseline environmental studies have been done on those parcels of land; the groundwater monitoring wells are already in place - it's much easier to get things cranked up.
Perhaps the military base proposition got rolled into this other similar plan. Won't stop the lawsuits, though.
I guess this is just how it worked when shopping for food (or anything else) in the old Soviet Union - you stood in a queue line for all the hours when you weren't working just to survive.
This is our future if the Commiecrats continue to get their way and keep prohibiting drilling and new refineries. Except, instead of $4.29 a gallon and a 3 hour wait, it will be $12.29 a gallon and a 3 hour wait.
I guess they think we should outfit our cars with sails and windmills - or better yet take "public" transportation?
We may have to go to legal resident/illegal resident days here in Georgia.
Yep, a minimum of 1-2 trillion barrels of recoverable oil from oil shale in the continental U.S. and our government won’t allow us to tap one drop. Shameful.
Yup, no gas here in WNC as Gritty said. I’ve seen many stations in my area sitting closed. They’ve been closed for over a week. There is only one station where I live that gets gas with any regularity. The Quality station gets a delivery about every other day. The lines are horrendously long and they limit you to 10 gallons a pop. We’ve cut way back on our driving. Lots of cancellations with sports, college classes, etc. “They” keep saying it’s going to get better but so far no relief. One good thing, it’s keeping alot of the leaf peepers away.
Hmm Donald Trump has no connection with the Oil industry. So either he is lying or you are. Utterly moronic Internet myth with NO base in fact. Total lie.
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