Posted on 12/27/2004 12:13:42 PM PST by soccer_linux_mozilla
Crude futures fell by more $2 a barrel on Monday as traders anticipated warmer weather in the U.S. Northeast later in the week and responded to weekend snowstorms in the U.S. Midwest that kept motorists off the road.
Traders brushed off any impact from the massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, where the government oil company and Exxon Mobil Corp., which produces and process natural gas there, said operations and exports were continuing as normal after brief power outages.
Light, sweet crude for February delivery plunged $2.78, or 6 percent, to $41.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in afternoon trade.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Gas $1.49 in north Atlanta on Saturday night, multiple stations. May be cheaper now.
Environmentalists have dictated the price of energy for awhile -- certain grades of gasoline have to be supplied in certain markets -- California and Arizona.
The other factor is state/local taxes -- the NorthEast and MidAtlantic states have had too many liberal politicians for too long.
I don't think Exxon/Mobil or Chevron/Texaco have had their stocks go through the roof -- not like some other industries -- when prices soar.
Natural Gas is in good shape -- we have ample storage for the winter months, and the price is an incentive to keep US production high. Also, North Slope Alaska is looking to starting sending Natural Gas down the pipeline eventually.
The other thing that should help in a year or two is ANWR in Alaska.
But there are moratoriums on drilling for oil in California and Florida -- so consumers have no right to complain when US Companies cannot produce oil here in the US because of Environmental Wackos.
The grade of crude also determines the price -- a Light Sweet Crude is the best type to refine/use.
It produces the most gasoline per barrel and the fact it is sweet means it has low sulphur content -- meaning the refining process is easier.
A nasty heavy, sour crude is like taking something almost like tar and refining, and trying to get a high content of sulphur out of the crude.
Such a crude might run in the mid $30s but is more expensive to refine and produces less gasoline...
Some crude oils are tough to get to flow out of the ground. The former Soviet Union, before the fall of Eastern Europe, used a Nuclear Weapon to try to get the a field to flow better -- [yes, they nuked an oil field to try to get it flow better...]
Traders brushed off any impact from the massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, where the government oil company and Exxon Mobil Corp., which produces and process natural gas there, said operations and exports were continuing as normal after brief power outages.
This is quite a bit different from the Gulf of Mexico production -- there were still plenty of problems in November trying to get all of the Gulf of Mexico back online.
I think in late October or early November, 87% of the Gulf of Mexico production was back online.
This was caused by the many, many hurricanes. Some people may have heard of some fast food restaurtants not putting tomatoes on hamburgers -- at least on the East Coast -- because the tomato harvest was devastated for December delivery.
Deep water wells would not have problems -- you are either able to seal off the well underwater or not. And they would probably run tests, after the earthquake, to check for damage.
Deep water platforms are meant to survive nasty hurricanes, let alone earthquakes [probably not as much a problem as a hurricane/typhoon].
This would be quite a bit different than if a nuke went off any where near a hi technology area, and fried all the electronics -- probably cars, stereos, cell phones, phones, radios, etc -- would all be fried by the EMP.
Federal and state taxes average about 40 to 50 cents per gallon these days
It's George Bush's fault.
I'll claim the highwater mark for now at $2.01 today in Seneca Falls, NY.
You "win" ???!
I don't understand. The leftist scaremongers told me oil would go to $100/bbl and never go down.
That's why Snowe and Collins have GOT TO GO!!
New England does more damage to the US policy than any other region of the US except CA/ORE/WA! Why is that ?
It's because
A.) all of the "over educated Socialists" who live here have transferred elsewhere.
B.) These same morons ahave convinced the rest of the country that New England offers are the best Universities out there.
C.) These same folks run the media. It's called brainwashing the masses.
What area besides New England is actually proud of electing felons, manslaughterers, Viet Nam war hero fakers,
sleazebags and fake Catholics?
Washington State is running neck and neck!
Is for me. The high prices changed what I did with my F-250.
However, when crude supply is 'tight' -- which it hasn't been all this year; prices rose wildly on the TRUE fear factor, and never mind that silly telly programme -- refiners WILL pay up for feedstock, whether heavy, sour, or Hillary (both heavy AND sour, pls note).
Refiners must operate their plants, and, to this end, WILL pay the cost to adjust their refining parameters (when able; not all are) to accommodate the quality of the existing supply.
This has historically produced some odd results from time to time, but, as I'm sure you imagine, refiners know their own business FAR, FAR better than any would-be meddlers (read: gov't a--holes) will ever do.
Do pls keep in mind also that cracking (i.e. producing gasoline and other added-value products) and distilling (i.e. producing #2 heating oil and diesel, and jet and kerosene) are just two sides of the inevitable coin. A refiner can get between X and X+N % of distillate from a barrel, and similarly between Y+P and Y % of crack product from the same barrel.
The refiner must to some extent guess (they're VERY good at this, btw) the demand over the entire mix of product, but said guess will occasionally be badly wrong, as when #2 prices spiked late in the heating season in 2000. Which error, naturally, led to the idiotic phenomenon of the Seed Of Chuckie and some of his up-East colleagues whining for a ''strategic'' (pardon my vomit) heating oil reserve.
Nonetheless, when speaking of crude and/or refining, the paranoiac notion of ''conspiracy'' will always be in play with the consuming public. This has been the case for almost 30 years because:
1) just after December 1972 (the start of the first ''embargo''), some integrated outfits DID try to rip off the public (w/o, I will note, much success over any but 30-60 days' duration), and,
2) gov't discovered, during the 1970s, that it was/is ENTIRELY to their advantage TO try to scare the populace, because they could (and did, and have, and continue to) acquire more power by railing against ''evil Big Oil'', and,
3) of the advent of the so-called environmentalists, who are perhaps the ultimate false-flag artistes of course, and find their peculiar interests entirely aligned with gov'ts Actonesque interest in controlling the production and distribution of energy products.
Disclaimer: I did not own ANY shares in any energy producing or refining or distributing company, bar 200 shares of Exxon left me by my grandmother (which I promptly sold in 1975, btw), from 1972 through 2001. From that date, only because I can add, and no special expertise required, I'm loaded to the guts with shares in assorted mineral (read: NG/oil) trusts.
This is just a wager (ALL purchases of shares are a wager, ok? Got it?) that gov't will continue to meddle and, whether by intent or not, keep inflating energy prices. This is a LONG-term play, not a short one; I rather think it will end sometime between 2009 and 2015...but I guess we'll both see about that in, er, longish order.
Best of the New Year to you!
Someone who knows the "skinny" about oil. . .finally!
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