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Oil and Gas

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by G8trGr8t, Oct 5, 2022.

  1. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    Few things happening right now where politics are playing with the price of gas to influence elections and economies. This reinforces my belief that we need to move toward more electric vehicles but my main push with fed funding would be fleet vehicles until that market was saturated.

    OPEC+ has apparently agreed to cut 2 million barrels per day from the market at about the same time that the SPR releases were to terminate and new oil sanctions to kick in on Russia. Combined, that could take up to 4 million + barrels per day off of the market.

    That decision was made against the lobbying efforts of the western world and is apparently based on OPEC belief that economies are going to stagnate and demand fall. A skeptic would think that maybe it is to help create sentiment against the democratic party if gas is $5 per gallon come November and peopel can't afford to fill their heating oil tanks (should be outlawed with the amount of nat gas we have in this country)

    It could also help to undermine the resolve on the russian oil sanctions. Perhaps some ME leaders want to be able to invest in and complete those projects that the west spent billions on and then left and helping Rosneft now may help said ME leader later when investors are needed.

    Or the alternative theory is that some countries are not capable of producing their current quota and this give them a face saving way to correct their reporting without having to admit they do not ahve the capacity to meet current quotas

    Biden Faces Gas Price Nightmare as OPEC Agrees to Russian Oil Cut Proposal (msn.com)

    Ahead of the meeting, it was reported both Saudi Arabia and Russia were expected to push for reductions of 1 to 2 million barrels per day. The U.S. lobbied extensively against the move, according to CNN, which could cause gas prices to rise ahead of November's midterm elections.

    In a note, financial analysts at Citi warned: "Higher oil prices, if driven by sizeable production cuts, would likely irritate the Biden Administration ahead of U.S. mid-term elections. Alexander Novak, the Russian deputy prime minister who is on a U.S. sanctions list, was among those who attended the meeting.

    Speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Subail al-Mazroui insisted the decision would be based on technical considerations.
    "The decision is technical, not political. We will not use it [OPEC] as a political organization," he said.
    ...................................................................................................................
    Analysis by Bloomberg said the proposed cut will have less impact than the headline figures suggest because a number of OPEC Plus members are currently producing oil below their quote rate. "If the full meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies ratify the proposal, it would have a smaller impact on global supply than the headline number suggests because several countries are already pumping well below their quotas," Bloomberg reported ahead of the meeting.

    "That means they would already be in compliance with their new limits without having to reduce production."


    Next is limits on exports of refined products

    California is facing $6 gas right now due to refinery limitations due to planned and unplanned maintenance. Newsome signed rule allowing them to make cheaper summer blend earlier. THis comes against a backdrop of energy department being mad at suppliers for not keeping enough refined product in inventory to deal with short term interruptions like refinery outages and/or hurricanes. Inventories are low due to record exports to the EU to help offset Russian losses. Energy is exploring setting export limits on refined products to help keep US gas prices low. How do you feel about export limitations on anything not critical to american defense? should we limit food exports?

    Biden Officials Float Fuel Export Limit in Meeting With Refiners - Energy News for the United States Oil & Gas Industry | EnergyNow.com

    Senior Biden administration officials pressed executives from some of the largest US gasoline producers to curtail overseas sales during a tense meeting Friday afternoon, suggesting that without voluntary action, the government could force the industry to stockpile more fuel in US tanks.

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other administration officials chastised the industry representatives for low diesel stockpiles, floating the possibility of export limits and a requirement for oil companies to hold minimum fuel inventories inside the US, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not be named describing the private virtual meeting.

    It was the latest in a series of meetings between the Biden administration and oil companies this year, as the White House seeks to tamp down energy costs that are contributing to high inflation. An earlier session in June was marked by a more robust back-and-forth conversation about the market and hurricane preparedness, the people said.

    In addition to Granholm, the session included representatives from Exxon Mobil Corp., Marathon Petroleum Corp., Phillips 66 and Shell Plc, as well as National Economic Council director Brian Deese and Amos Hochstein, a senior energy adviser at the State Department, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    Although the session was billed as a discussion of refining operations and fuel supplies in the wake of Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, the storms were not a focus, the people said. Instead, discussion centered on lower-than-normal inventories of fuel, with diesel stocks 20% below their five-year average.
     
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  2. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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  3. 96Gatorcise

    96Gatorcise GC Hall of Fame

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    Question, is motor vehicles the largest percentage of use of oil and gas in the US?
     
  4. oragator1

    oragator1 Premium Member

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    I’ve said this for years.
    The idea that we continue to depend on a resource largely controlled by bad countries is beyond moronic.
    Not to mention if we heavily invested in it we could control the patents that will power the next many decades globally.
    But just another thing this country is too myopic and jingoistic about.
     
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  5. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    the tech, and the supporting materials, haven't really been available in the past. even now, lithium shortages and grid infrastructure are real obstacles

    i think we should just let China figure out the tech and then steal it. turnabout is fair play?
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2022
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  6. oragator1

    oragator1 Premium Member

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    if we had invested decades ago we would have already been there.
    Carter put solar panels in the roof of the White House, and Reagan took them down. So this fight had been coming up on a half century.
    Imagine if we had invested even nominally then in it 40 years ago where we’d be? But all we hear is “let’s drill more”.
    We can spend 2 trillion on a stimulus that goes out the window as soon as the checks cash(and helps cause a recession), but fifty billion on this and we might ensure our self sufficiency for decades, make us wealthier cia the payents, and take away power from countries like SA, Russia and Venezuela….but people scream about oil production making us energy independent.
    Par for the course.
     
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  7. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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  8. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    we will have to agree to disagree. the tech wasn't there and it is still being developed to a point to be commercially viable, let alone the raw materials (lithium). no amopunt of money thrown at it then would have advanced the tech that fast or solved the materials challenges. heck, with all the computing power and AI avilable today, we are still struggling to come up with a good battery that doesn't require raping the world to produce
     
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  9. oragator1

    oragator1 Premium Member

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    regardless of where you think we would or would not have been, we have likely missed the boat.
    There was around 282 billion in clean energy investment last year, and only 50 or so billion of it was ours. The US is almost 1/4 of the world’s GDP, so we didn’t even come close to spending relative to our comparative GDP. When th important patents are written, it will be China holding many of them, along with the manufacturing capacity.

    These are the strategies behind China’s ambitious clean energy transition | Greenbiz

    50 years from now we will look back on this as a colossal geopolitical failure.
     
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  10. carpeveritas

    carpeveritas Moderator

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    You left out the usage of oil in wind turbines. I'll grant it is synthetic oil but synthetic oil is created in the lab from crude oil and natural gas.
    How Much Oil Does a Wind Turbine Use
    At the moment, the average wind farm has 150 turbines. Each wind turbine requires 80 gallons of oil for lubrication, and this isn’t vegetable oil; this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude… 12,000 gallons. Once a year, that oil must be replenished.​

    How Synthetic Oil Is Made
    Synthetic oil is made in the lab, thus each manufacturer takes different approaches. No manufacturer is about to share proprietary information about the process, but we can deduce certain facts about development without sounding like a chemistry professor in the process.

    Full synthetic, or 100 percent synthetic oils, are usually extracted from crude oil or a byproduct of the same. In the case of Pennzoil, they have figured out how extract synthetic oil from natural gas.
     
  11. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    It’s in the 10.1% at the bottom of the infographic. Any rotating mechanism requires lubrication.
     
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  12. ElimiGator

    ElimiGator GC Hall of Fame

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    Any rotating mechanism requires lubrication.....Not true. I can design a rotating mechanism without lubrication. We use plain bearings quite often in our manufacturing facilty for high speed fabrication/automation. To your point though, the loads experienced by rotating windmills would require lube to decrease frictional heat and wear on the metal to metal surfaces as well as micropitting in gears. Plain bearings wouldn't work in a wind turbine system.
     
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  13. 96Gatorcise

    96Gatorcise GC Hall of Fame

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    Thank you. It answers my question. Indeed if a majority of a barrel goes towards transportation then that should be an area in need of change.

    I just don't feel the infrastructure ( power generation and charging) is ready for a cultural shift.
     
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  14. gatorchamps960608

    gatorchamps960608 GC Hall of Fame

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    Another MBS gift to his buddies Trump and Kushner.
     
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  15. gtr2x

    gtr2x GC Hall of Fame

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    Yep, my thought also. No doubt the Saudis lean right, far right. :eek:
     
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  16. carpeveritas

    carpeveritas Moderator

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    You also need to know at what point each of products are produced when refining crude oil. Gas is second in line. Jet fuel is father down the chain so what to do with all that gas?
    Refining crude oil
    [​IMG]
     
  17. fubar1

    fubar1 Premium Member

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    Bottom line is nobody important is listening to the Biden administration when it comes to energy. The Saudi’s certainly aren’t, OPEC isn’t (the Administration lobbied hard behind the scenes before this meeting), American energy producers are not (not drilling more to drive down price) and markets are certainly not.

    To top it off, Biden is playing political games with the SPR, releasing 10M more barrels ahead of the mid-terms.

    More failed leadership from this administration. Sadly, the wounds were all self-inflicted from extremist, climate religion based positions. This group has a lot of gall calling anyone else radical or extremist.
     
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  18. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    and there it is. another 10M barrels from the SPR. Not sure this is necessary if OPEC + was not meeting the current quota as some have reported and this supposed cut was not really a reduction from current production levels.

    Biden releases 10 million oil barrels Strategic Petroleum Reserve after OPEC decision (msn.com)

    President Joe Biden will order more oil released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as gas prices are on the rise and OPEC announced it was making its biggest cuts in production in more than two years.

    Biden will release another 10 million barrels this month and he will 'continue to direct SPR releases as appropriate to protect American consumers and promote energy security,' White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and economic adviser Brian Deese said in a joint statement.

    In the statement, the administration also called on oil companies to 'keep bringing pump prices down by closing the historically large gap between wholesale and retail gas prices.'

    The administration continued to renew its call to decrease the country's dependance on fossil fuels and warned it will work with Congress on ways 'to reduce OPEC's control over energy prices
     
  19. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    good point. Thanks for clarifying.
     
  20. gatorpa

    gatorpa GC Hall of Fame

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    How so?