Posted on 04/02/2015 6:30:14 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
So what would you call his statements over the years in multiple interviews stating his belief that the Keystone XL pipeline should be built?
I call it b.s.
Don't blow your worship of Warren Buffett up my pantleg.
So he only waited three years after purchasing the rolling stock to mumble that the pipeline makes sense. And only in the past year, as far as I can tell, has he made anything resembling "multiple statements". Well, good for him and for you, six years after the fact.
You know the position he holds in the business world and political world. If he gave a second thought at all to the Keystone Pipeline he could have given "multiple interviews" pointing out the murderous anti-oil ideology of Obama, and be on the front page of every major daily in the world until the pipeline was approved.
He doesn't do it. He says just enough to cover his bets and win the eager hearts of people like you.
He says it "makes sense". That's his perogative. Mine is to point out that he is weakly, barely covering his own ass at the peril of those of us up and down the BNSF lines.
The new rules require North Dakota crude to have vapor pressure below 13.7 pounds per square inch, which is less than the 14.7 psi threshold national standard recognized as stable.
Because, after all, it is that fracced highly volatile fracced explosive fracced Bakken (did I say) fracced crude oil, which we all know defies the laws of thermodynamics and is so slippery the trains seem to have trouble staying on the tracks.
Why, just the train going by will make your hens quit laying, your cows give sour milk, stop the wheat from sprouting, and make the onions taste like skunk cabbage.
All sarcasm aside, the Obama administration has been looking desperately for a way to shut down this oil boom since Duh-1 got in office. Stopping Keystone wasn't enough (it would have carried some Bakken crude from the region), Attacking fraccing didn't work--because it wasn't a harmful process. Going after oil companies over flaring byproduct natural gas and uncondensed heavier gases(the same stuff that gives the oil a higher vapor pressure--dissolved propane, butane and up)--even though the highest percentages of flared wellhead gas are on federal lands (too many agencies' hoops to jump to get the feeder pipeline permits).
Now, the cargo gets the blame for shipping accidents. The standard has to be changed because, well, other, more volatile cargoes just aren't as.... well, because THEY said so, that's why.
Keystone had been haggled over in the meantime, and still is.
We have been developing this resource for 15 years, now, and the rail option developed along with it. Keystone was originally and primarily intended to take the bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands to refineries in the Southern US, and likely would have replaced the Venezuelan and Iranian heavier crude stocks with Canadian.
Initial estimates of 100,000 BOPD of takeaway capacity for Bakken Crude in the Keystone line would have been woefully inadequate to handle the new production--Elm Coulee alone would have used that up, and the rest of the US side of the Williston Basin still needed an outlet for the oil.
When the first rail facilities were built, Bakken oil (approx. 42 gravity sweet crude) was selling at a $30/bbl discount because of the transportation bottleneck.
It was even profitable to truck the oil out at that discount.
Buffett just saw one way to make money in the interim, and doubtless would have increased his position in any pipeline company as well, had they built a line to handle the production.
I hear you.
I can look out my window at the tanker cars sitting idle on the siding loop.
I also see the grain trucks lined up for days waiting on an empty car.
I’m not trying to say Buffett is the bogey man, or the only bogey man, in the situation.
Buffet works for Buffett, which is what a capitalist is supposed to do.
But you and I, capitalism or not, would not put our “funds” or our political connections ahead of God, life or country.
I think Buffett does, which is his perogative, within the law, at least.
You and I would not.
Don't put words in my mouth I never said or implied.
Warren is certainly not a hero of mine. I was just correcting your false statements. Free Republic should not be a source of false info.
God Bless and have a great day.
Since you are the arbiter of what is true and false, maybe you ought to direct your God-given abilities to gauging the veracity of Buffett’s own claim to “support” of the Keystone pipeline.
You are apparently willing to label fellow Freepers as liars...but what Buffett says is gospel, so it would seem.
The railroads might blame oil trains for that, but it has been that way as long as I can remember.
As far as safety goes, the big wrecks have been on CSX trackage, with the exception of Lac Megantic. That was due to operating procedures and equipment failure (Train parked, unattended on a grade for the night with an engine left running to keep brake pressure up. That engine caught fire, was put out and shut down, and the brake pressure bled off. The train freewheeled downgrade into the town some eight miles, with tragic results.)
The other problems have been literally, train wrecks. Casselton ND involved running into an already derailed train (grain cars derailed on an adjaacent track). PA, VA, WVA, all involved running off the rails. The sudden surge in derailmants may be weather related, but, admittedly, it has crossed my mind it may be even the result of sabotage. Is the number of oil train
The problem I have with this isn't that the cargo is "dangerous" any more than any other cargo of a similar nature being transported by rail.
There are more dangerous cargoes being transported, but the media emphasis has been on the oil train derailments, even when other cargoes are involved in wrecks.
The question becomes one of making the transport medium safer for ALL cargo, whether it is HF, Anhydrous Ammonia, Ammonium Nitrate, HCL, H2SO4, or whatever. All of those could have had equally tragic outcomes--or worse than crude oil cars, although the fire aspect is something that provokes primal fear.
I do not think this provocation of primal fear is done lightly, in fact, I think the backlash can (and should be) the increasing pressure to build pipelines. Instead, the greenies and fellow travelers are using it as an excuse to stifle production in any way possible.
As far as Buffett goes, aside from ongoing profits on the decreasing price break a shipper can capitalize on, the key to making real money is knowing where the next trend is going and being there, financially, when it arrives. Status quo can make you money, but it is change that has the greatest profit potential. I can see Buffett pushing for the pipeline, even from the onset, as the rail play was supposed to be more of a stopgap measure for the majority of production, and only a shipping concern where small refineries were involved. Some of the same facilities (sidings, loaading/unloading areas) used to ship oil could be reworked to ship grain afterwards, providing even more potential profit.
Think about it, not from the consumer end, not even from the stockholder end, but as someone who could set the next trend and profit immensely from it, and you could see where Buffett is (again) a couple moves ahead of the game--which incidentally, is why he is as wealthy as he is.
:: quite a bit of de-gassing in itself and all the cars are vented. ::
Likely not to be allowed (future) under 40CFR60.5360&ff (”Quad O”).
Yer barkin up the wrong tree, Whitey
Listen, I appreciate Thackney a great deal, and have told him so many times in the past.
Not long ago he got me crossed up with someone else who was dogging him in a thread, laid the piety act on me and ended up apologizing when we got things straightened out.
I thanked him sincerely for his graciousness at that time.
I admit to having a short fuse in regard to Warren Buffett, who I consider a crony capitalist of the first order, willing (even eager) to consort with the likes of Obama going back as far as the 2008-2009 bailout, into which Buffett was brought largely secretly, and from which he profited handsomely.
I disagree with Thackney on this thread in that he grants credibility to Buffett’s weak claims regarding Keystone, while I think he is simply playing the Obama game: i.e., Obama supports traditional marriage until he doesn’t, Buffett supports Keystone up to but not including any skin in the game.
My fuse burns even faster these last few days in particular, when I watch public figure after public figure claiming to stand for something until they don’t, especially when it might cost them emnity from the press, from the big corporate boys, from the various attack squads of the left.
That certainly isn’t Thackney’s fault. But I am not going too far in the way of apology for it either, because I am deeply conservative, and very definitely fallible, and the times...well, they are trying, to say the least.
I know your nickname very well too, and I appreciate you offering a word.
Our miserable state also sued ND over their coal plants.
Thackney is only seriously interested in delivering petro-product to be finished/refined; crude, raw NatGas and NGLs. He really could not give a ratsass who does it.
Currently, the biggest player in the deliver game is Buffett. That does not make him Buffetts butt-boy.
I’m of the same frame as Thackney. To use a worn out term, follow the money.
I don’t care who does what either. How they do it can sometimes be a concern.
As I say, I appreciate your comments.
BNSF handles a lot of the oil.
The real problem with the oil trains is accountability. There is a limit on the amount of liability that the railroad accepts, after that the federal government picks up the tab. That means that you and I pay for RR accidents. The laws governing RRs date back to the 19th century, when RRs were first being built and the government had a vested interest in encouraging the growth of rail traffic.
Oil companies should also share in the cost of an oil train wreck, just like they do in the case of an oil spill from a tanker ship. Can you imagine not holding BP responsible for a major spill because they don’t own the ship?
There should be a COFR for every company moving oil by train. That is a certificate of financial responsibility. They have have COFRs to move oil by ships, it should be the same by train. As it is, the oil companies do not bear any responsibility that is spilled outside of their gates, NONE.
That is not true. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, 1986 along with US DOT rules provides the responsibility of the spills is not the financial responsibility of the tax payers.
Goverment is often involved to get it cleaned up quickly, but the final bill is not ours.
http://www.oilgasmonitor.com/liability-federal-environmental-law-crude-oil-spills-rail-cars/7815/
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