Posted on 03/25/2008 5:01:44 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Yes, it tells the expense of trying to build and service a facility 200 miles offshore.
Petrobras?
In reference to what?
It's a pretty common refrain that we haven't built a new refinery in 35 years, and it's true. We've actually closed quite a few smaller ones during that period.
Those were closed either due to regulatory stuff that killed them, or simply because they were no longer located to a convenient source of crude.
But the the industry has actively exanded EXISTING refineries to handle increased capacity, so the concept that we're only able to refine what we could in 1973 is just mistaken.
I'm not saying we don't need additional refineries. That may or may not be true. We do need additional refining capacity.
Counting the number of refineries isn't the way to measure how much we can refine.
I'm not arguing that they're not making record profits. I wish every American company were doing so.
Many are, but it sounds good in the MSM to point out that Exxon is when gasoline prices seem painfully high.
It's all part of the mindset that oil companies are evil. It prevails even when they're going bankrupt. I surely won't be able to influence overall opinion, but I can tell you that it's bullcrap.
Exxon is doing what every company should do, which is to put all their investment options on the table and spend the available money on the best ones. Stock buybacks are part of that.
Exxon isn't really owned by the managers or employees to any significant extent. It's owned by mutual funds, retirement funds, etc. It's owned by the shareholders, and the company has to try to make their investment worthwhile.
The shareholders do own the company.
Is Exxon showing flat production predictions in the future? Sure. Flat would be good for a company of that size.
Maybe you don't realize that every single well drilled declines rapidly in daily production. Sure, it might hold steady for a month or two, especially if the pipeline is constrained. But they all decline. You have to work your butt off just to replace the natural decline.
When you're huge, you really have to work your butt off.
Why in the hell are you not at liberty to say? You were some secret spy for Mobil? How did they swear you to secrecy?
Why shouldn't I think that you did nothing more than put Fritos on the shelves of their mini-marts?
That is what you call refinery creep and there are limits to it. Eventually places like Louisiana and Houston will just be giant tank farms. You are spot on about small refineries being phased out, largely due to environmental concerns and small refineries being less efficient that larger ones. We see this in NJ. There were six refineries producing must of the gasoline for NY, NJ and PA. Now there are only three, although they have expanded production somewhat. Those smaller under 100k barrels per day refineries just can’t cut it anymore. However, we only have the capacity to crack 18.5 million bpd and we consume 21 million bpd. Therefore, the balance has to be made up by importing the balance. It is more expensive to import distillate since, unknown to most, even though a barrel of oil is 42 gallons, when it is cracked, the yield is larger than 42 gallons, depending on whether you are refining for home heating oil yield or gasoline yield. This is called processing gain and is around 5 percent per barrel or 2.1 gallons per barrel. Again, it varies according to season. During winter in the Northeast, the goal is to maximize heating oil production. In the summer the goal is maximize gasoline production.
The point is we need more production and more refining capacity. Otherwise they have to ship us distillate which is more volatile and needs better handling and is more costly.
Americans drove less in 2007 for first time
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As gasoline prices broke records in 2007, Americans cut back on their driving for the first time in more than 20 years, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.
Total travel fell 0.4 percent to 3.00 trillion miles from 3.01 trillion miles in 2006.
In December, when U.S. retail gasoline averaged $3.02 a gallon, travel fell 3.9 percent to 236.6 billion miles from 246.3 billion miles in 2006.
With gasoline prices still climbing, other data shows Americans are responding by changing their gas-guzzling habits. Not only are they driving less, but they are buying more fuel-efficient vehicles and utilizing more public transportation. Daily ridership on U.S. subways and public buses is at the highest level in more than 50 years.
Demand is going up because of India and China. We can't change that. Ever. We can affect the supply end of the equation. We just choose not to do so. Your complaint is with your government. Write them a letter, they'd love to hear from you.
Exxon is an American company and must obey American laws. The rules are the same on an Exxon rig in US waters or International waters. I know. I been on them.
Uh, you have to drill where the oil is known to be, which happens not to be "in international waters". The premise that ANY oil company wouldn't drill where oil is known in high likelihood to be if permitted to do so is simply bullshit, and only suitably believed by liberal idiots.
Do you think about what you read and post? Do you understand how absurd these statistics are? Some government clown is asked to come up with an estimate of miles driven and he thinks his estimate is so good that it accurate within a tenth of a percent of a number that cannot possibly be known with any certainty. Did the Federal Highway Administration ask you how many miles you drove in 2006? They certainly didn't ask me.
And I really didn't ask about how many miles people drove. I asked about gasoline consumption. At least the highway folks could estimate this from gasoline tax receipts that should be known by someone someplace. But maybe that wouldn't serve whatever political purpose the government had in mind when they presented the stupid statistic you cite.
ML/NJ
There are 6 refineries in NJ and 5 in PA.
That's what I was wondering.
Unless the government has transponders attached to our odometers, how in the heck could they come up with anything better an educated guess?
And then reducing it to a specific month seems absurd to me. I think you could make an estimate based on industry reports of the volume of gasoline and diesel consumed and multiply it by the average MPG of vehicles. But that result is surely bogus since nobody has a clue which vehicles were being driven that month.
My understanding is that three of them have been closed.
Just checked that link. Last time I looked three were shuttered. I guess business is good.
I wish at my Job it would work like that.
You leave me wondering if it doesn't work like that at your job.
Hmm, I thought Exxon only had to comply with local laws. IE - if operating in Venezuala, they only had to comply with Venezualan law.
If Exxon must comply with US law where ever they operate, then it’d make a lot more sense for them to re-incorporate themselves into a more friendly country.
The sober discussion of facts has no place on these oil company conspiracy threads.
Often companies will form wholly owned subsidiaries in foreign countries so they can avoid US laws, like OSHA and that picky law that says you can't bribe people to get work. THAT is the way of the 3rd world. You can't do business in Mexico, Nigeria or Venezuela for instance without bribes.
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