It is just nonsense to try and claim Obama made gasoline prices double.
Posted on 10/01/2014 5:11:33 AM PDT by thackney
...By all logic, we should be working to sustain the boom. We aren’t, and therein lies a classic example of how good policy is held hostage to bad politics and public relations. What would promote continued exploration is a lifting of the current U.S. ban on exporting crude oil. Let producers sell into the world market. But that seems (wrongly) an unjustified giveaway to industry. The public perceptions are atrocious.
Hardly anyone expected the oil boom, with some notable exceptions — prominently Harold Hamm, who pioneered North Dakota’s Bakken field. “Fracking” (the injection of pressurized water into fields to make oil and natural gas flow) and “horizontal drilling” (the use of one pipe along a single oil reservoir) changed everything. Formations of “tight oil” embedded in shale or dense sandstone became economical to produce.
The benefits are huge. Surging U.S. production has created thousands of jobs, helped stabilize global oil markets and curbed our import dependence. From 2008 to 2014, net imports dropped about 50 percent.
Sure, there are concerns: Rail transport of crude oil involves safety issues; there are continuing environmental worries about fracking. Still, public gains outweigh the costs. Indeed, producers’ very success at raising oil output increasingly poses problems.
If you want companies to search for oil, you have to provide them with a viable market where they might profitably sell it. As output has increased, this has become a bigger issue. Here’s why.
The new oil consists mostly of “sweet, light” crudes, meaning they have a low sulfur content and are less dense than “sour, heavy” crudes. The trouble is that many U.S. refineries have been designed to process heavy, sour crudes...
The result is that more and more new oil is chasing less and less usable refining capacity....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I and this author believe that banning exports may lead to a short-term price dip, but long-term would keep the same relatively high prices with the production coming from overseas.
There is one being built in the Bakken;
http://www.calumetspecialty.com/about-us/facilities/dakota-prairie-refining
I believe Calumet ND refinery will be built soon. They are a “real” company already operating refineries and delivering product in other locations.
Supporting the embargo are U.S. voters who mistakenly think that the embargo is keeping gasoline prices from increasing and environmentalists to whom the embargo is tool to reduce the supply of hydrocarbon fuels.
The political scales may tip in favor of repeal with the new Congress in January. The Obama administration is already receptive.
The embargo may not be as big a restraint on trade as it is portrayed. The Brent/WTO spread narrowed dramatically in September as world crude prices dropped.
The $20 billion cost of refinery overhauls pales in comparison to industry E&P expenditures.
The swap with Mexico is small potatoes; the spread off Alberta Select is the big number. Keystone XL is the solution.
I don't see the cost to upgrade a refinery, especially, to use a more expensive oil than they currently use, relevant to what they spend to find and produce more crude oil.
Each unit of business needs to stand on its own. Also we have plenty that only produce and others that only refine. The small margins in refining are the driving force that caused several major oil companies to sell or spin-off their refining operations, such as ConocoPhillips and Marathon.
Forgot to add, thanks for the perspective related to GATT.
When gas prices DROP! then I will say ok to sell oil outside the country. We are paying double what we did before obama and the corrupt democrats came along. I suspect payoffs myself.
You believe on the demand side of the economic curves works but the supply curve is just a fantasy?
Keeping the ban is eventually going to lead to a drop in US production and higher prices.
Why is it okay to run crude oil through a simple distillation column and export the gas-oil output that isn’t suitable transportation fuel, but is not okay to export the crude?
It makes sense for the US to continue to import the cheaper heavy sour oil our refineries have been upgraded to run on while exporting the surplus expensive light sweet oil to others.
We are paying double what we did before obama and the corrupt democrats came along. That is not coincidence. Until they are gone the price will remain high just as obama stated he would for coal. He might as well have added gas and home heating oil. In California it is artificially kept high.
In Los Angeles county it is several cents below the 18 cents per kw hour that much of California residents are being charged. It went up during the Gov Davis years and kept there as a payoff. One of many reasons he was recalled. Arnold Schwarzenegger who came after him was useless in bringing the price down as he wanted to pay off the huge deficit using the extra money made from the taxes on the bigger bills - deficit never came down but spending went up..
The power companies used the money to pay off their equipment years earlier then they could and the state gets higher taxes as they get a % of the power bill. The power companies are happy and the government is happy and the residents are broke.
The democrats want higher prices and exporting oil is not the answer, getting rid of democrats is. Prices will then come down and the oil companies can then export.
That is a dishonest description. You could just as easily measure from the peak half a year earlier and claim prices are lower under Obama.
Obama certainly is not helping lower prices, but he isn't the source of doubling prices either.
The democrats want higher prices and exporting oil is not the answer, getting rid of democrats is. Prices will then come down and the oil companies can then export.
It is a false claim that oil companies and others will continue to invest to keep up our production while rising production pushes prices lower than the rest of the world.
Just as in previous times and with any item, when supply begins to climb until prices begins to drop, supply is going to drop. Such a policy will just move jobs and investment to other countries.
It will not lower prices beyond a short term dip. It will cost us jobs, trade balance and long term higher prices.
That is a dishonest description. ???
Just look at the gas price when you pull into the station!
The average price of gasoline in 2008 was $3.30/g.
Picking a short term dip as your comparison point is no more real than claiming President Bush was worse because of the high spike at July 2008 when Gasoline was $4.16/g.
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
On 11-21-08 it was $1.59 It has spike before but has not gone as high or averaged as high then these last 5 years.
It is just nonsense to try and claim Obama made gasoline prices double.
I guy I worked with got hired there a couple months ago. So they are staffing, don’t know what the startup date is.
Construction of the diesel refinery, on a 318-acre site located west of Dickinson, N.D. is expected to take approximately 20 months.
http://www.calumetspecialty.com/dakota-prairie-refinery-project
Groundbreaking was March 26, 2013, so maybe by the end of the year.
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