Thread: The Official Oil and Gas Thread

DC, I wish you didn't hate snow. I had it all planned out. Hot tub and everything.

NEW YORK -- Oil futures rose to a new record of $100.09 a barrel Thursday after the government reported a larger-than-expected decline in crude oil inventories and an unexpected rise in heating oil supplies.

One day after oil prices briefly touched $100 for the first time, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude inventories fell by 4 million barrels last week, much more than the 1.7 million barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, had expected.

On the other hand, inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, rose by 600,000 barrels, countering analyst expectations that distillate supplies would fall by 600,000 barrels. And supplies of gasoline rose by 1.9 million barrels, more than the 1.3 million-barrel increase analysts had expected.

Prices fluctuated after the report as investors struggled to interpret the data, but by late morning, oil was higher and setting new records.

"Any surprises (in the report) are more the result of false expectations as opposed to anything truly remarkable in the data," said Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in New York.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose 47 cents to $100.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a trading record.

February gasoline fell 1.34 cents to $2.5555 a gallon on the Nymex, but February heating oil rose 0.11 cent to $2.7415 a gallon. February natural gas rose 10.5 cents to $7.955 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, February Brent crude rose 48 cents to $98.32 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rose 0.3 cent overnight to a national average of $3.052 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Retail gas prices have rebounded in recent weeks, following oil's lead.

Crude's move to $100 a barrel prompted Indonesian officials to announce plans to ask OPEC to boost output to bring down oil prices, Dow Jones reported. While that may be tempting to some Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members, many analysts think high prices will themselves do the trick by cutting demand.

"It is unlikely the cartel will decide to increase output quotas ahead of the normally low-demand second quarter," said Addison Armstrong, director of exchange traded markets at TFS Energy Futures LLC in Stamford, Conn., in a research note. "Furthermore, the U.S. economy is slowing, the result of which is likely to be lower demand for oil."

Indeed, there are already signs demand is slowing. Gasoline demand fell last week by 160,000 barrels, and rose only 0.1% over the last four weeks compared to the same period last year. Analysts consider year-over-year demand growth of under 1.5% to be tepid.

Also in its weekly report, the EIA said crude supplies at the closely-watched Nymex delivery terminal in Cushing, Okla., were unchanged last week at 17.5 million barrels. Falling supplies there are seen as a symptom of a tight market, and those concerns ease when Cushing inventories rise.

Refinery activity rose by 1.3% last week to 89.4% of capacity. Analysts had expected refinery use to increase by 0.4 percentage point.

Crude imports rose last week by an average of 204,000 barrels a day to 10 million barrels a day. Gasoline imports rose 136,000 barrels a day to an average of 1.2 million barrels a day.

Oil closed over $100 for the first time ever. I hope cswil wore his nut cup today.

It's only going to get worse so start budgeting 30% of you paycheck to fuel and about 10-15 yrs down the road, carry a handgun and brass knuckles because you'll have to fight for fuel.

OPEC is going to create a global recession and the world powers stand by and allow them to do it.

Originally Posted by cswil

OPEC is going to create a global recession and the world powers stand by and allow them to do it.

They don't care. They're so rich and they know if a world power would try to invade it would cause a global war. Same with Venezuala, the US is a puppet to these nations as long as they rely on them to provide oil. And the supply will not last forever in either place.

The US has reserves in Utah, Alaska, and who knows. If you take the subsidies away from oil companies and tax the hell out of them then gas will be through the roof and explorations will cease because of the cost. And the Sierra Club and other groups are a whole other story.

This country and other countries will not survive without oil. It's too demanding (with everything from electricity to fuel for automobiles) and never willing to sacrifice with the "I want it now attitude and no waiting" never enough money made and everything is so fast paced no other energy source will be able to keep up. I know it sounds doom and gloom but it's the truth.

And the people of OPEC could give a rat's behind because they find it funny to see Americans and the world squirm at their hands!

I heard an interesting take on Cavuto yesterday about Asia. An analyst points out that Asia is driving up demand buying buying buying....and now they cant afford it. By driving up the price cutting production, OPEC is cutting their own throats.

I doubt it, but............anyway, if this war is about oil, then we damn well better be moving some tankers in.

Originally Posted by cswil

I heard an interesting take on Cavuto yesterday about Asia. An analyst points out that Asia is driving up demand buying buying buying....and now they cant afford it. By driving up the price cutting production, OPEC is cutting their own throats.

I doubt it, but............anyway, if this war is about oil, then we damn well better be moving some tankers in.

I like watching Cavuto on FBN and he always has solid points!

We'll never be held hostage by OPEC or Venezuala. If worse comes to worse we'll overthrow Chavez and get a puppet government set up. There is a shit load of oil in the Canadian oil sands, but it is a heavy sour crude that you have to cut (50-50 blend) with a medium crude (typically Arabian crudes) to get it to flow down the pipelines. Problem with the canadian crudes is that the US refineries and pipelines need to be upgraded to handle this stuff. With crude at $100/bbl we have the money, but we are held up by environmental permit delays, lack of labor (both in engineering and construction), and long deliveries in materials (steel and equipment).

So it is going to take time and money to switch crude supplies and we'll have to deal with the jack-offs in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere until we can get it done. One benefit in having a stable Iraq is another steady source of oil, but it's not enough to matter. OPEC wants to keep oil prices high so we'll see how this goes.

The worst thing congress could do would be to raise taxes on US oil companies, or gas taxes on the consumers, or tighten enviornmental laws on exploration. All these things will just raise the price of gasoline and hurt the consumer. What they should do is continue to give tax incentives to alternative fuels, help fund research in better batteries, and get over all of the empty rhetoric of drilling in ANWR and other places.

Originally Posted by BigDaddyBronco

We'll never be held hostage by OPEC or Venezuala. If worse comes to worse we'll overthrow Chavez and get a puppet government set up. There is a shit load of oil in the Canadian oil sands, but it is a heavy sour crude that you have to cut (50-50 blend) with a medium crude (typically Arabian crudes) to get it to flow down the pipelines. Problem with the canadian crudes is that the US refineries and pipelines need to be upgraded to handle this stuff. With crude at $100/bbl we have the money, but we are held up by environmental permit delays, lack of labor (both in engineering and construction), and long deliveries in materials (steel and equipment).

So it is going to take time and money to switch crude supplies and we'll have to deal with the jack-offs in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere until we can get it done. One benefit in having a stable Iraq is another steady source of oil, but it's not enough to matter. OPEC wants to keep oil prices high so we'll see how this goes.

The worst thing congress could do would be to raise taxes on US oil companies, or gas taxes on the consumers, or tighten enviornmental laws on exploration. All these things will just raise the price of gasoline and hurt the consumer. What they should do is continue to give tax incentives to alternative fuels, help fund research in better batteries, and get over all of the empty rhetoric of drilling in ANWR and other places.

And quit ******* around with gosh dam Ethanol.

Bottom line, the environmentalists and liberal tree huggers need to realize that this could soon become an economic castastrophe for our country and the rest of the world if we cannot tap our own reserves and build some new more efficient (cough *cleaner* cough) refineries.

Originally Posted by BigDaddyBronco

We'll never be held hostage by OPEC or Venezuala. If worse comes to worse we'll overthrow Chavez and get a puppet government set up. There is a shit load of oil in the Canadian oil sands, but it is a heavy sour crude that you have to cut (50-50 blend) with a medium crude (typically Arabian crudes) to get it to flow down the pipelines. Problem with the canadian crudes is that the US refineries and pipelines need to be upgraded to handle this stuff. With crude at $100/bbl we have the money, but we are held up by environmental permit delays, lack of labor (both in engineering and construction), and long deliveries in materials (steel and equipment).

So it is going to take time and money to switch crude supplies and we'll have to deal with the jack-offs in the Middle East, Russia, and elsewhere until we can get it done. One benefit in having a stable Iraq is another steady source of oil, but it's not enough to matter. OPEC wants to keep oil prices high so we'll see how this goes.

The worst thing congress could do would be to raise taxes on US oil companies, or gas taxes on the consumers, or tighten enviornmental laws on exploration. All these things will just raise the price of gasoline and hurt the consumer. What they should do is continue to give tax incentives to alternative fuels, help fund research in better batteries, and get over all of the empty rhetoric of drilling in ANWR and other places.

I agree with your post! In a way, OPEC will hold the US hostage as long as the US lets them. The govt needs to tell the special interest groups to step aside and let the oil companies do their jobs.

As far as the construction end, the hard working old timers are retiring and if we rely on the younger generations to get their hands dirty good luck! And materials are what hold up a job, that's why i am sitting at home right now!(it was either get laid off and sit at the back of the books be off for months or suck it up and sit at home a couple weeks and wait for the job to start up again)

Anyway, we need to get away from OPEC plain and simple.

Originally Posted by cswil

[/B]

And quit ******* around with gosh dam Ethanol.

Bottom line, the environmentalists and liberal tree huggers need to realize that this could soon become an economic castastrophe for our country and the rest of the world if we cannot tap our own reserves and build some new more efficient (cough *cleaner* cough) refineries.

Ethanol is such a bad idea, but farmers have a lot of votes. Getting a normal person to understand than more energy goes into making a gallon of ethanol than what you get out of it is pretty much impossible.

The refinery I work at is spending a ton of money to become more efficient and run a whole different type of crude and luckily (knock on wood) haven't had too many problems with the feds. Other refineries haven't had much luck. One of the refineries that might supply your gas, cswil, is having their expansion shut down right now in St. Louis due to the concerns over the strip mining in Canada (even though they get their Canadian crude through a different method that doesn't use strip mining) and air quality concerns in STL. The environmental permit is being presided over by three judges but they will not give us their names. They call them the Honorable Judge #1, the Honerable Judge #2, etc. Pretty wierd stuff, probably some political lobbying going on by us and the environmentalists, but who knows. If this expansion doesn't happen, all it does is hurt the consumer, but whatever.

I heard there is enough shale oil in CO, UT and WY to make the Middle East look like a puddle.

I guess one of the big hold ups is that it requires a tremendous amount of water to get the stuff to "separate" so to speak.

Does anyone know more about this shale oil?

Originally Posted by tubby

I heard there is enough shale oil in CO, UT and WY to make the Middle East look like a puddle.

I guess one of the big hold ups is that it requires a tremendous amount of water to get the stuff to "separate" so to speak.

Does anyone know more about this shale oil?

Big Daddy does. He is a Petroleum genius. He give real answers...not superficial one like NTL.

Originally Posted by tubby

I heard there is enough shale oil in CO, UT and WY to make the Middle East look like a puddle.

I guess one of the big hold ups is that it requires a tremendous amount of water to get the stuff to "separate" so to speak.

Does anyone know more about this shale oil?

They are looking into different ways of extracting it other than steam which is very inefficient. A guy I was talking to said the government is doing tests with ultrasonic and microwaves to see if that removes the oil more efficiently. When oil is $100/bbl all of these "disadvanged" crude oil supplies look more attractive.