Posted on 06/09/2014 5:07:51 AM PDT by ckilmer
NEW YORK (TheStreet) --Speculation for crude has been rampant over the past six months. Despite the fact that we are merely one month and 0.03% away from making an all-time high in crude oil supplies, we're seeing WTI crude at $102.76. If the price was based purely on a supply/demand theory, we should be in the low $80s.
We've all heard market pundits mention the U.S. should repeal all the laws prohibiting the exportation of crude oil. What they don't mention is these laws have not prevented these companies from exporting all forms of refined products. We have doubled our exports of gasoline in the past five years. Despite this, people are paying about $4 per gallon at the pump. Regardless of what you feel about fracking, it has produced huge amounts of oil.
Recently, U.S. refineries decreased production to about 9.5 million barrels a day. Despite this decrease we saw an uptick in the surplus of gasoline by 0.2 million barrels. This shows us the demand is slightly down while prices continue to climb.
Why? Well there have been several reasons over the last six months to believe that crude may spike. Russia, a major producer, was playing a risky game of geopolitics with Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Things were tense and worries were high that the supply they gave Europe could be turned off. Libya, a very minor producer in the global landscape, had a revolt where rebels stormed the capital. They were already only running on a fraction of capacity. Iran, another major player, had been hit with major sanctions limiting its output.
For the most part, all of these political fears have been resolved. Putin appears to be playing nice, and is even telling Ukraine it has more time to pay its natural gas bills. Libya has calmed down to a whimper. Iran not only had been ignoring earlier sanctions, the U.S. gave it the green light to go ahead and produce as much as it wanted as long as it discontinued the nuclear program. T
This all has happened while Canada realized the oil sands in Alberta, in addition to not drying up, were yielding much more than originally thought. Just for this area alone Canada is realizing there will be an increase of 72,000 barrels a day than originally expected.
Due to the invention of fracking, U.S. production was up 14% in 2012 and 15% higher in 2013. Just since January of this year crude production is up roughly 12% again. North Dakota and Texas are responsible for the vast majority of this production, but it is only a matter of time until they find another hot spot somewhere in the U.S.
We are literally at the point where we are running out of storage room for our crude and companies are distilling it for export.
What's the point? There's no longer any excuse for us to be paying more than $3 per gallon at the pump. We're all for using cleaner energy and getting rid of crude, but in the meanwhile prices should be much lower. The entire 25% difference would be going directly to GDP in the long run.
Speculators, wake up! With all the geopolitical issues resolving themselves... crude isn't worth $103 per barrel.
“No, I mean skimmers and separators on the intakes. I’m not talking about a visual measurement.”
Whatever quality of water goes into the plant cooling system comes out more polluted because of equipment leaks...nothing is a 100%.
You can’t see this with the naked eye.
The reject of the separators, skimmers and filters GO BACK INTO THE RIVER OR CANAL.
End result:
The quality of water upstream separating equipment = the quality of water downstream effluent out of the plant + the quality of back wash water from the separating equipment + tiny (hopefully) chemical leakage under allowable limits.
The above is a simple Material Balance in general. Other things like effluent temperature that could affect the River Eco System, exaggerated by the wild EPA, is a different story that’s not discussed here.
The above is the nuts and bolts. Where you look at or measure the quality of water all depends on the point in the River or the canal.
The reject of the separators, skimmers and filters GO BACK INTO THE RIVER OR CANAL.
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Your assumption is false. It is feed into the process and waste streams of the plant. Just as our storm water inside the plant boundaries.
My only thought was:
having spent many years in the aluminum business we knew the ideal was to have alumina plants (where bauxite is reduced to alumina) as close to the bauxite mines as possible - smelters too, however they require massive quantities of electric power, so finding cheaper sources such as hydroelectric dams was needed.
I think I’m going to use your own language to answer you.
Your statement in #30, “The modern refineries typically release cooling water cleaner than the water they take in, if they have any release at all.”
is totally FALSE and ......
Now you posted:
“”The reject of the separators, skimmers and filters GO BACK INTO THE RIVER OR CANAL.””
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“Your assumption is false.”
Here is my answer that you “missed” in my #35:
“”The back flush of filters using same river water is pumped back in the river. IOW, you saw the clearer water but not the back flush carrying what was in it in the first place because of a different exit point into the river downstream the first one.””
The OPERATIVE WORD IS “DOWNSTREAM!” Get it? Maybe further explanation about plant design is needed below.
You wrote:
“It is feed into the process and waste streams of the plant. Just as our storm water inside the plant boundaries.”
There’s a waste treatment plant inside the plant boundary. It’s sized for the maximum flow rate of plant waste effluent PLUS a safety factor. It’s NOT designed to handle the river water intake reject for many reasons.
The reject from the river water filters back wash, which is NOT contaminated, is pumped DOWNSTREAM (yeah, it’s that crazy word again) the waste treatment plant, IOW, IT BYPASSES the waste treatment plant inside the main plant boundary. It could be connected to the main plant effluent (cleaned up process waste) pipe and into the river at a specified minimum distance DOWNSTREAM the river water intake, or is run independently back to the river depending on pipe runs and cost.
Conclusion:
- my assumption was NOT an assumption. It’s simple engineering.
- it wasn’t false.
You should have read my post(s) thoroughly before jumping to the wrong conclusion or judgement.
Have a good day.
It’s NOT designed to handle the river water intake reject for many reasons.
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That is not true for the chem plants and refineries I have dealt with water in Freeport and the greater Houston area.
The reject is NOT returned to the river. Their permits will NOT allow it. It may not make sense, as that is where it came from, but the EPA forces these major industries to make the water source cleaner than it currently exists by being forced to remove contaminants if they want to use it.
“Their permits will NOT allow it. It may not make sense, as that is where it came from, but the EPA forces these major industries to make the water source cleaner than it currently exists by being forced to remove contaminants if they want to use it.”
Permits must have “evolved.”
“Contaminants” that are captured by filtration are not dissolved chemicals. They are silt, small pebbles, leaves, etc. And whatever passes through the intake pumps’ screens, supposedly.
The EPA is quite dumb to have the process plant’s waste effluent stream “diluted” by relatively clean river water. The probes on the effluent pipe would measure less chemical pollutants’ PPM or percentages than the real numbers in the treated stream without the extra load of clean water, especially if the back wash is relatively constant as in the 24/7 plants.
That’s what I have to say on the subject.
I didn’t say it made logic sense, it was based upon government permits.
Rotating screens or the like in the water were acceptable. Once it was taken into the the plants piping, any discharge, from any source, had a higher quality of the discharge than the original source of water.
These were places like on the Houston Ship Channel, the massive Freeport petrochem complex, Beaumont. They were all areas that in the past had very bad pollution in the water source. It surely was as you said, permits evolved over time.
I rarely work with that type of process of the plant. But they do need power for pumps, instrumentation, P&ID reviews; that is how I get involved. Strangely, I spent the morning with the City of Houston on helping to get an enlarged water intake from a canal out in Mont Belvieu. That facility has intake only, no outlets back to the water source.
“I didn’t say it made logic sense,”
For the record, I didn’t say that you said that. Hence, permits “evolved.”
Just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.
I used to do all those things from start to finish. I enjoyed drawing the PFDs and the P&IDs on CADD, a no no to my boss! I was too damn expensive to do that, but I managed to conspire with CADD managers...it saved me a lot of time on back-checking, supervision, esthetics, etc.
I delegated the garbage we were talking about because I hated it and it reminded me of exactly that; garbage!
I had to deal with waste personally, I mean, no delegation, when I dealt with live virus’ kill systems and had to make absolutely sure it’s dead through redundant systems. No cutting corners by clients or “it’s all right, it’ll work” attitude, NONE!
I enjoyed drawing the PFDs and the P&IDs on CADD, a no no to my boss!
An ongoing discussion my boss and I have. Not for piping but rather electrical/control systems. But I am a lousy checker of my own work when we are running fast.
“I am a lousy checker of my own work when we are running fast.”
Nothing better than a fresh set of “experienced” eyes. We are not infallible.
I designed all kinds of plants. An important part of my job was to coordinate with all engineering disciplines. That included Architects when pharmaceutical or biochemical plants were involved.
Many moons ago, I insisted on our construction leads and/or outside construction contractor’s leads to attend the HAZOP meetings and final review of the P&IDs to incorporate relevant comments and “Issue For Construction.
I was also available for consultation on construction problems where pipe routing was required up to plant commissioning and start up.
It was a pleasure with some and a disaster with others whom I couldn’t explain my “absolutely not” meant just that!
Many issues were resolved amicably, however, some were resolved when I had to talk to their bosses or if it rarely “process” didn’t get it’s way, mainly because of personality conflict, my boss ORDERED theirs! :-)
Ah, well, it all worked out successfully at the end.
Where is the media? Remember the crying on the nightly newscasts when oil-man-Bush sent prices to $2 per/gal? Been hovering $3.50 to $4 on Obuma’s watch...nothing but crickets from the ‘bamy butt kissers.
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