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331 comments on DrumBeat: July 14, 2006

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westexas on July 14, 2006 - 9:41am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
How fungible will net oil exports be in a post-Peak Oil environment?

Following is a post I made yesterday.  I am  beginning to wonder if oil exporters are going to increasingly turn away from the US market in favor of exporting their oil to importers that have better quality and/or lower cost goods and services to offer in exchange for oil.    

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=latin_america&sid=a_H7VhJXt_6I

Venezuela's Oil Sales to U.S. Drop as Chavez Sends More to Asia

The Venezuela story is (mostly) not related to my Export Land model, but there are three points:

(1) It does raise the question of whether oil, in a declining net export capacity environment, is truly fungible;  

(2)  Note that Chavez is transporting his oil seven times farther than the distance to the US Gulf Coast.  This effectively reduces net export capacity because of the greater amount of oil locked up in transit;

(3)  Combined with gas station story, it makes one wonder if Chavez is gradually withdrawing from the US market.  Given China's low cost manufacturing capability, if I were Chavez I would prefer to trade with China, versus the US, even with the higher transportation cost.

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JN2 on July 14, 2006 - 10:04am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
How fungible will net oil exports be ...?

Good question. I've asked TOD before how much oil is traded on the spot market (as opposed to fixed price long term contract) but no-one seems to know. Chavez also has his Petro-Caribe initiative which offers oil to Caribbean nations at less than (market) cost. I think you're right, this trend will accelerate.

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westexas on July 14, 2006 - 10:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I am beginning to think that the contraction of the discretionary (majority) side of the US economy is going to happen far faster than I initially thought--it's beginning to happen right now.  Note that the home foreclosure rate in North Texas is already up 26% year over year.

My continuing advice: ELP (Economize; Localize; Produce).

I very strongly suggest that you get yourself on the nondiscretionary side of the US economy ASAP.

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Dragonfly41 on July 14, 2006 - 10:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That's what I call the Peak Oil "Duck and Cover" procedure.  Westexas' ELP guidelines are this generations equivalent to the Cold War's "Duck and Cover" drills.

The difference is of course that Westexas' advice will actually help you.

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Don Sailorman on July 14, 2006 - 11:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
For "production" I suggest
  1. a 19th century style trading post
  2. an 18th century style tavern

These are what I have, up and running--and even legal!
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westexas on July 14, 2006 - 11:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You need to advertise on TOD.
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Don Sailorman on July 14, 2006 - 2:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thank you.

From friends and family, I already have plenty of customers.

My most lucrative business is consulting about survival supplies.

e.g., I can provide a $100 package for college students, a $1,000 package for young couples and all the way up to the "Fortress Package" at $300,000.

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TrueKaiser on July 14, 2006 - 11:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
whats in each of those packages?
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Don Sailorman on July 15, 2006 - 12:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I customize each package based on:
  1. What a person already has and knows.
  2. What is most needed.
  3. What will be of value no matter what happens.

I offer money-back guarantees.

Since 1962, nobody has ever asked for their money back. Also during and before, nobody has asked.

I do it because I like people, and I make no money at it that I do not give to the Nature Conservancy.

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john milton on July 14, 2006 - 3:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Who was it who said: "Allhands buid boats!"?
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Don Sailorman on July 14, 2006 - 3:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Noah.

The only boat builder in history who finished on time.

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GreyZone on July 14, 2006 - 4:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Amazing what sufficient motivation can do, eh?
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AlanfromBigEasy on July 14, 2006 - 11:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Andrew Jackson Higgins finished ahead of time in New Orleans, and won WW II ias a consequence.  City streets were converted into factory expansions, street lights were retimed to spped deliveries to the various shipyards in New Orleans

A major reason that the offical US WW II museum is a mile from my home on Andrew J. Higgins Blvd..

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AlanfromBigEasy on July 14, 2006 - 11:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Andrew Jackson Higgins finished ahead of time in New Orleans, and won WW II is a consequence.  City streets were converted into factory expansions, street lights were retimed to speed deliveries to the various shipyards in New Orleans.

To insure adequate materials in case of war, he bought the entire 1941 Phillipines mahogany harvest.  All of which ended up on various invasion beaches.

A major reason that the offical US WW II museum is a mile from my home on Andrew J. Higgins Blvd..

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Don Sailorman on July 15, 2006 - 12:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I LOVE Higgins boats!
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westexas on July 14, 2006 - 1:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Something's gotta be done

This was a quote, by a disgruntled grocery shopper, shown on CNBC this morning.   She said that if you go into a Safeway with a $100 bill, you come out with $20 worth of groceries.  She then said that "Something's gotta be done."  

We will see similar interviews with consumers in front of gas pumps--"Something's gotta be done."

The epic paradigm shift that we are witnessing is American consumers' very gradually dawning realization that the days of cheap food and energy are fading away.  They are not going to be happy campers, and they are going to demand that politicians do something to bring back cheap food and cheap gasoline.   I suppose that a first step would be for Congress to repeal the Laws of Thermodynamics.

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Leanan on July 14, 2006 - 1:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Probably something like they're doing in New Brunswick:  price controls.
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PaulS on July 14, 2006 - 1:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yup. And then (as implied by the article) if the controls actually bite, they will get shortages and lines (as we got in the 1970s). Then, I suppose, they can haul Hugo Chavez into court for "hoarding", and try to enforce a judgement to that effect. Oh, what fun.
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odograph on July 14, 2006 - 1:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
'seems to me that the highly processed (convenince) foods are climbing most rapidly, and that if you cook basic items there is less of an impact.

I guess I'm suggesting "eating lower on the food chain" in two senses of the phrase.

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tstreet on July 14, 2006 - 4:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Could it be that the record production of ethanol is starting to have an effect?  Corn based,i.e., heavily processed foods would be the first affected. Corn is in just about everything processed, including meat.  We've had a cheap food policy for years through our subsidy policy, but with the ramp up of ethanol, this will probably end.

 

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Don Sailorman on July 14, 2006 - 4:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Meat is cheap now and getting cheaper due to drought in some areas.
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Twilight on July 14, 2006 - 5:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'd like to see some data on it.  I'm betting its transportation and other petroleum costs creeping in.
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Don Sailorman on July 14, 2006 - 7:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Buy a Sunday newspaper.

Shop the specials.

That is what I do.

Meat is cheap and getting cheaper.

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VW on July 14, 2006 - 2:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree and my great fear is that what some (and especially those in power) will demand is that "doing something about it . . ." means going to war for the remaining oil rather than actually doing something about the way we live. I see a situation unfolding over the coming months and years where a large segment of the American population is convinced that the countries with the oil are "holding out on us" or "using oil as a weapon."  Remember, as Bush told us, the American way of life is not negotiable.
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Twilight on July 14, 2006 - 2:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think you've got it.  You aren't "doing something", at least not seriously, unless the military is involved.
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totoneila on July 14, 2006 - 5:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Twilight,

Speaking of military involvement, how about a US naval ship docked in the Black Sea port of Feodosia setting off demonstrations, then riots, then a blockade with anti-NATO Russian seperatists discovering onshore US weaponry [if purportedly to be used in upcoming seaborne exercises--why unload it offshore]?

http://en.rian.ru/world/20060608/49231209.html

Does anyone think the G8 does not have a lot to discuss?

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Bitteroldcoot on July 14, 2006 - 2:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I know what you mean.  This whole Israel/Lebanon thing is beginning to taste like a pretext for an oil war in Iran.  If we can't invade over WMD we use our surrogate.
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Will on July 14, 2006 - 5:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sure thing. Something's got to be done.

  1. cancel Star Wars anti-missile systems
  2. don't build the next generation Raptor airplanes.
  3. close most of the 700 offshore military bases
  4. quit pushing corporate globalization agendas
  5. quit pulling our winkies over gay marriage and abortion rights and immigration
  6. quit listening to lobbyists from K street and listen to constituents
  7. quit subsidizing corn
  8. etc... etc... etc...

Sometimes I feel like Herbert Hoover is in office and we are waiting for the "market" to make things right.

Not going to happen.

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Prodigal Son on July 14, 2006 - 9:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think what we'll see politically are two things:

  1. A return to classic 'class warfare' economic politics by the left.

  2. An ever more strident effort by the right to focus on 'cultural' issues to fob off growing economic discontent.

This means in the US:

A. Further political polarization.

B. Purge of moderates from both US political parties.

C. Increasing institutional dysfunction and gridlock.

D. Increasing search for 'extra-constitutional' solutions by whichever party controls the Presidency.

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petersburger on July 14, 2006 - 11:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
In the formerly 'hot' real estate markets, such as here in Florida, the foreclosure statistics are even worse:

http://tinyurl.com/nmu3n

"In Broward County [Ft. Lauderdale area], foreclosures were up in the first quarter over the end of last year by 57 percent. In Palm Beach, they jumped 69 percent, and in Miami-Dade, they were up 17 percent.

Overall, South Florida had about 3,000 more foreclosures than at the end of 2005 -- a jump of 40 percent."

The ARMs with no money down are coming home to roost.

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slx on July 14, 2006 - 3:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
  1. I wonder if China, that apparently had trouble with heavy sour Saudi crude, could handle heavy sour Venezolan crude?

  2. The export capacity does not diminish because of oil locked up, since once the switch is made, the deliveries will be as regular as they were. However, this locks up more oil transport capacity and that has the same effect. Plus the fuel burned underway also costs something.
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