Posted on 02/18/2013 6:19:47 AM PST by thackney
A year ago, the shutdown of several refineries serving the Northeast and the possibility they would not reopen threatened to boost New Englands already high gasoline prices by as much as 15 cents a gallon. But an influxof cheaper crude oil extracted from shale rock formations in the United States has helped save most of those facilities and stabilized gas prices.
The revival of the East Coast refineries is another example of how the controversial drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is changing the energy equation for the region, nation, and world.
Just as fracking opened vast reserves of natural gas over the past decade, it is now unlocking crude oil trapped in shale deposits. It is so dramatically increasing domestic production that the United States is projected to surpass Saudi Arabia as the worlds biggest oil producer by 2017.
The influx of this domestic crude, known as tight oil, has allowed East Coast refineries to decrease their reliance on more expensive foreign oil, increase profit margins, and regain their economic competitiveness, refinery operators say. They estimate the domestic crude cuts oil costs by a few dollars per barrel, which can have a huge impact on their bottom line.
A savings of $1 per barrel across our entire refining system is worth several hundred million dollars of net income to Phillips 66, said Dennis Nuss, spokesman for the Houston company operating the Bayway refinery in New Jersey.
In Philadelphia, domestic supplies have helped resurrect a facility that accounts for nearly one-fourth of East Coast refining capacity. It was put up for sale in 2011 and expected to close for good last summer as high oil prices and slackening demand made it barely profitable. Today, it is refining up to 330,000 barrels of oil a day,...
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
...fluff story to hide the obvious...gas gone up .43cents in last 30 days. First time gas has cost this much in mid february EVER!
The little boy king wants $5 a gallon gas...he’ll get it
Really? Controversial?
A dead give away to a liberal writer. It is nothing more than commonsense and a practice that has been in use for decades. I suppose the writer doesn't call EPA regulations or anything Obama does "controversial".
Controversial. You know, like the controversial process of exhaling Carbon Dioxide which will lead to Global Warming.
gasoline prices off the Brent curve, and because of the huge spread between Brent and US crudes, the refinery business is making huge profits these days. That’s why these refineries are reopening, but at some point it really ought to mean pump prices for gas will fall. Maybe as Natural Gas based vehicle fuels come online
Waste Mangement, Inc., a national company, our local garbage hauler, has recently converted its entire fleet to nat gas from diesel..........
yea, there is still a story to be told - my conservatives and Tea Party folks...drill baby drill and JOBS like the philly refinery are saved!! gosh - why can’t the power folks in washington see this? maybe because they are too worried about looking ggod instead of being effective.
Good news - as long as we can keep the Greenazi's at bay!
If you see posts of interest to Pennsylvanians, please ping me.
Thanks!
Thanks brityank for the heads up
Hope we can also get the coal plant and mine workers back in action.
The writer acts like getting oil is new, too. I have been working Horizontal Bakken wells pretty steadily since 2000—long before it ever got to be big news—and the natural gas is the byproduct of drilling for oil here, not the other way around.
What has changed over time is the methods of getting out of the ground in a profitable manner. Most people never see it in PA, but there are still a lot or old, I mean old, wells that still produce .. I am not talking about great quantities, but enough to keep pumping. With horizontal drilling (newer) and fracking (not new) it is amazing what can come out of the ground. What is even more amazing is what can come out of new ground ... Stuff that has been cut off from exploration by liberals and echo wackos for decades.
Some of the new oil from ‘old ground’ is simply economically feasible because of technological developments. For instance, we knew there was oil in the Bakken, and it had even been produced in some locations where the geology was just right for doing so. However, the refinement of horizontal drilling and fracking techniques made the boom happen. There was a lot of experimentation along the way, believe me, and the innovation will continue.
Exactly. You and I have the same understanding.
CNG vehicles are online, and in fact are old news. They can be purchased as used vehicles...the same with flex-fuel vehicles.
As far as I know, methanol can be made from NG, and gasoline can be made from methanol.
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