And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your pipelines
run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are increasing as a way
to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in preparation for some
geo-political crisis (as your current inventory levels and spread
between WTI and Brent would suggest).

Especially since your domestic consumption is declining year after year
since you went into a depression in 2008 and half of you are either
unemployed or on SS disability.

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.

==============================

US oil imports from Middle East increase

February 25, 2013 8:04 pm

By Ajay Makan in London

The US was more reliant on the Middle East for its oil imports last
year, underscoring the critical importance of the politically unstable
region for the country despite the growing energy independence its shale
gas revolution is bringing.

That domestic production boom has triggered intense debate over whether
the US would still guard the world’s critical sea lanes, such as the
Strait of Hormuz in two decades' time – or whether China, whose
dependence on Middle Eastern crude imports is rapidly rising, would
replace it.

However, recent oil import trends from the Gulf region suggest why the
US might continue to play a critical security role in the region. While
domestic production increased the most in 150 years last year,
Washington will confirm later this week that oil imports from the Gulf
region continued to rise.

By the end of November the US had already imported more than 450m
barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia, more than it imported from Riyadh in
the whole of 2009, 2010 or 2011, according to figures from the US energy
department. For the first time since 2003, Saudi imports accounted for
more than 15 per cent of total US oil imports. The Gulf as a whole
accounted for more than 25 per cent, a nine-year high.

Other Gulf exporters are also seeing unusually strong US demand. By the
end of November, Kuwait had shipped more oil to the US than in any year
since 1998. Analysts are expecting annual figures to be released later
this week to confirm the trend seen up to November.

New extraction techniques – most notably hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, and horizontal drilling – have unlocked huge hydrocarbon
resources in the US previously thought unrecoverable, raising
expectations that over time US dependence on Middle East oil will drop.

These developments triggered debate about the long-term commitment of
Washington to security in the Gulf, where the US Fifth Fleet has
operated since 1995.

At an oil industry conference in London last week, Christof Rühl, chief
economist at BP, raised the prospect of a US president, 15 years from
now seeing a problem in the Middle East and saying: "That’s no skin off
my nose. I need very little oil and... I get it from Canada and Mexico."

But at another conference earlier this year, Carlos Pascual,
co-ordinator for international energy affairs at the US state
department, highlighted that oil was a global fungible commodity, saying
Washington would remain involved in Middle Eastern oil security. “When
there is instability or insecurity in any part of the world, it drives
up the global prices of those commodities.”

Oil produced in shale fields like the Bakken in North Dakota and the
Eagle Ford in Texas is of a light high-quality variety. But Gulf oil is
still vital for the US because many US refineries are set up to process
heavier crude oils. So while imports of light crudes from countries such
as Nigeria have fallen dramatically, demand for Gulf crudes has not.

An expansion of the Motiva refinery in Texas has provided a fillip to US
demand for Saudi oil. Motiva, which is now the largest refinery in the
US by capacity, is jointly owned by Royal Dutch Shell and the Saudi
national oil company, Saudi Aramco.

Part of Motiva’s expanded plant was temporarily shut down for repairs in
the second half of 2012, but is expected to restart imminently.

Although oil imports from the Middle East have been rising, overall US
demand for crude oil has declined slightly since 2004 because of a
combination of efficiency measures, increasing use of natural gas and
the financial crisis.

Imports of Saudi oil were equal to 9.3 per cent of all crude processed
by US refineries in the year to November, while imports from the Gulf
were equal to more than 14 per cent of the total. Both percentages were
the highest since 2008.

On 2/26/2013 8:24 AM, T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your pipelines
run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are increasing as a way
to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in preparation for some
geo-political crisis (as your current inventory levels and spread
between WTI and Brent would suggest).
....

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.
....

Re-export of finished (refined) product, basically...since mid-2000s,
export of finished products has roughly tripled from the historic nearly
constant amount from then back to the '80s. As market prices make it
more profitable to export, folks do...surprise, surprise.

--

On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 9:24:34 AM UTC-5, T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Yes we have tons of oil but it's that shale oil **** that's really expensive to get to, and we have to destroy our land to get to it.

Until oil gets around $200/bbl, the shale **** doesn't pay off. Besides why should we lay waste to our own land when other countries willingly do it?

On Feb 26, 4:45*pm, wrote:
On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 9:24:34 AM UTC-5, T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Yes we have tons of oil but it's that shale oil **** that's really expensive to get to, and we have to destroy our land to get to it.

Until oil gets around $200/bbl, the shale **** doesn't pay off. Besides why should we lay waste to our own land when other countries willingly do it?

Actually the USA is now forecasted to be the largest oil
producer in the world by 2020. No shale required. Fracking
and drilling where it was not productive at $40 a barrel,
but is at $90, being the factors.

T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your pipelines
run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are increasing as a
way to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in preparation for
some geo-political crisis (as your current inventory levels and spread
between WTI and Brent would suggest).

Especially since your domestic consumption is declining year after
year since you went into a depression in 2008 and half of you are
either unemployed or on SS disability.

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.


Uh, yeah. We import oil. We refine the imported oil. We sell the resulting
product for a tidy profit.

Most countries in the world don't have ANY refining capability, so they
depend on us - and others - for driving their cars or heating their homes.

"T Boone Pickens" wrote in message
...
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your pipelines
run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are increasing as a way
to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in preparation for some
geo-political crisis (as your current inventory levels and spread
between WTI and Brent would suggest).

Especially since your domestic consumption is declining year after year
since you went into a depression in 2008 and half of you are either
unemployed or on SS disability.

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.

==============================


You could always invadeVenezuela.

Two things:

1. Geology is a science that's still growing, especially the geology of interpreting seismic data under water. The US has lots of oil off it's south coast in the Gulf of Mexico and north of Alaska. As the geology of finding oil under water improves, there's likely to be more oil found under the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean.

2. Also, when you drill a well in an area that's known to contain oil, you typically don't hit just one productive zone, you hit several, each at a different elevation. But, often those other zones will produce gas, and not oil. And, that's a problem for oil companies.

That's because with oil, you can put a pumpjack on that location and pump the oil through a separator into a storage tank. In that case, you use some of the solution gas that comes out of the oil to fuel the engine that runs the pump jack and flare all the rest of the gas. Then you just send out a truck every week or so to collect the oil from the storage tank and transport it to an oil refinery.

But, if you hit gas, then unless there's a gas processing plant nearby, your options are severely limited. Normally the law will require that gas pipelines from gas wells be buried underground, and so crossing someone's farm with a gas line can be expensive, as can crossing a river or a highway. So, when an oil company drills for oil, but only gets gas instead, they typically just shut-in that well until the situation changes, like someone builds a gas plant nearby.

So, the price of oil and the price of gas don't go hand-in hand. That's because as the price of gas goes up, more gas plants get built, and more gas wells come onstream to produce gas to those new plants, thereby tilting the supply and demand balance in the buyer's favour. So, the price of gas is going to rise much more slowly in future than oil did because of all the shut in gas wells all over the place. I expect that just like Alberta, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Texas have all kinds of old gas wells that have been shut in for decades because the cost of piping that gas to the nearest gas plant was prohibitive.

All it takes is a small increase in the price of gas for one more gas plant to be built in an area with lots of shut in gas wells, and all of the shut in gas wells in that area suddenly start producing. That's because as long as there's no gas plant in the area, everyone's gas stays in the ground. But, as soon as one well starts producing from a gas reservoir to a gas plant, every other company that has a well penetrating that same reservoir will make tieing their well into the same gas plant a top priority. That's because no one wants to see their gas coming up someone else's well, cuz that means they're stealing YOUR gas.

Alberta has gazillions of shut in gas wells.

"HeyBub" wrote in
m:

T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your
pipelines run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are
increasing as a way to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in
preparation for some geo-political crisis (as your current inventory
levels and spread between WTI and Brent would suggest).

Especially since your domestic consumption is declining year after
year since you went into a depression in 2008 and half of you are
either unemployed or on SS disability.

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.


Uh, yeah. We import oil. We refine the imported oil. We sell the
resulting product for a tidy profit.

Most countries in the world don't have ANY refining capability, so
they depend on us - and others - for driving their cars or heating
their homes.

Right. Most refineries are near ports (for imported oil). See
Rotterdam.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies...n/pubs/images/
ShellPernisRefinery_lg.jpg


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han wrote:

Uh, yeah. We import oil. We refine the imported oil. We sell the
resulting product for a tidy profit.

Right. Most refineries are near ports (for imported oil). See
Rotterdam.

As I posted last Friday, you are not necessarily a NET exporter of
gasoline or other refined products.

In the 4'th quarter of last year, some (or at least one) refiner
exported 5% of it's gasoline and 17% of it's heating and diesel
production.

The reason - your economy has gone into the toilet and demand for
transportation fuels is taking a dump.

Gasoline demand in the U.S. sank 2.9 percent to 8.736 million barrels a
day last year as pump prices averaged $3.521 a gallon, the highest in
records dating back to 1919.

“The reason we can export so much is demand in the U.S. is weak,” Cohan
said. Since 2005, the U.S. has lost nearly 2 million barrels a day of
total product consumption, he said.

Even though some (or at least one) refiner has exported finished
products in Q4, nationwide you are (today) importing 400k barrels per
day of gasoline.

So tell me how is it that some refiners are exporting gasoline and
diesel (presumably being exported from gulf-coast refineries) while you
are also importing gasoline (presumably into east-coast ports in Philly
and Baltimore) ?

I'll tell you why - Logistics. You don't have a good internal
fuel-distribution network within the US.

T Boon Pickens wrote:

So tell me how is it that some refiners are exporting gasoline and
diesel (presumably being exported from gulf-coast refineries) while
you are also importing gasoline (presumably into east-coast ports in
Philly and Baltimore) ?

I'll tell you why - Logistics. You don't have a good internal
fuel-distribution network within the US.

You could very well be correct. Importing gasoline in the northeast is
partly because a number of northeastern refineries have been shut down in
the last little bit.
"Nearly 50% of the refining capacity on the East Coast has either shut down
or may shut down within the next few months."

See more at:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/10/news....Bl4GFrnT.dpuf

dpb wrote:
On 2/26/2013 8:24 AM, T Boone Pickens wrote:
And you still think that you don't need the XL pipeline from Canada?

Either you have a really bad logistics problem with how your
pipelines run inside the US (and your mid-east oil imports are
increasing as a way to deal with that) or you are stockpiling oil in
preparation for some geo-political crisis (as your current inventory
levels and spread between WTI and Brent would suggest).
...

If you've got a better explanation for this, lets here it.
...

Re-export of finished (refined) product, basically...since mid-2000s,
export of finished products has roughly tripled from the historic
nearly constant amount from then back to the '80s. As market prices
make it more profitable to export, folks do...surprise, surprise.

Which is ecactly the reason they want the XL pipeline. So they can export the
oil after they refine it in Texas. We get the pollution, they world gets to
refined oil products, which are even now the US's biggest manufactured product.