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104 comments on DrumBeat: August 5, 2006

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Darwinian on August 5, 2006 - 8:54am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Crude oil is crude oil.....except when it's condensate.

I wrote on Thursday: "All crude oil is crude oil and everything else is something else."

Oil CEO replied:

Hahaha, that's what I though, too. What's condensate, then? Of course, I know now. As Axl Rose once said, "Welcome to the jungle."

Well, I still stand by my statement. I am forced to mix condensate with my crude because the EIA does. All their data for individual nations is "crude + condensate". I simply have no choice in the matter.

But the question remains; why does the EIA mix crude oil and concentrate together. Well, I must confess I really do not know but I believe it is because that is really what happens. That is, condensate is just dumped in with the crude and the two are refined together, producing whatever motor fuels, and other petrol products that comes out.

But just because I am forced to mix my crude and concentrate when I am trying to glean the peak form all the data available, such as it is, that still doesn't mean that I must mix products from the corn field or cane field with it.  And I am not going to mix palm oil or canola oil with it either. And I sure as hell am not going to mix pressurized bottled gas with my crude oil.

Peak oil will peak when crude oil peaks, not when palm oil or butane peaks. And when crude oil peaks it will mean the peak of all crude oil, whether it comes from the Alberta Tar Sands, the Orinoco Bitumen, the Arctic or the deep-water continental shelf. All crude oil is crude oil and it doesn't matter where it comes form.

Thank goodness the EIA does mix all crude oil together when figuring crude + condensate. As far as the EIA is concerned, there is no such thing as "unconventional crude". So all we really have to do is use those numbers. Not that they are accurate because they are not. The EIA constantly over reports, but not nearly as much as the IEA. The EIA is reporting Nigeria down by 325,000 bp/d from their high last December. But Nigeria itself is reporting numbers twice that amount.

But that is the best data we have. And mixing alcohol, vegetable oil and bottled gas with our data just does not make any sense. It only adds an unnecessary confusion factor to the mix.

I know I have thrashed this same straw for weeks now so I will let up for awhile, unless of course someone else brings it up.

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creg on August 5, 2006 - 9:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
THANKS to this site; organizers,posters & commenters ;as an ardent reader I feel the need to say how helpful this  community/info/work/dialogue is. Thanks again!
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Prof. Goose on August 5, 2006 - 11:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
you're welcome.  :)  we do what we can.
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Mad Maxout on August 5, 2006 - 12:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
When the oil peak goes down (if it hasn't gone down yet) the "condensates" will max out too. At at least one gas station, the premium is already a penny short of the buck-a-litre mark.

It's to a point that a "football pool" could be made where you get to guess in months until gas is $5/gallon. By then, a small amount of the demand destruction will go down, as I mentioned coworkers and myself.

If you're one of those lucky six-digit earners, ask your secretary about the gas prices! An office loaded with six-digit earners will not be anywhere near as inconvienced by high gas prices as are we working stiffs who'll never earn a six-digit income in Y2K6 dollars. A four gallon commuting mission is a bigger bite if you earn "only" $50,000/year vs. $150,000/year.

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john milton on August 5, 2006 - 12:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"If you're one of those lucky six-digit earners, ask your secretary about the gas prices! An office loaded with six-digit earners will not be anywhere near as inconvienced by high gas prices as are we working stiffs who'll never earn a six-digit income in Y2K6 dollars."

Ummm... The coner office folks might be a little put out when they come to work and find that the proles upon whome they depend to actually, GET SOMETHING DONE aren't there 'cause the gas price made it more reasonable to stay home with the kids, or tend the veggie garden etc.

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Mad Maxout on August 5, 2006 - 5:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Or when it'll "pay" to work at a McDonald's within walking or bicycle distance.
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fleam on August 6, 2006 - 1:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Rent a room from someone and walk to work, yeah, minimum wage works almost everywhere in the US.

I know some people who bought their house a long time ago and can make the payments on min. wage just fine - trouble is, they're often earning less - they're not always working fulltime. But they squeak through, and they live in Huntington Beach! But, no car payments, no cable, no bigscreen, they live a lot like people did in the 1950s or so.

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sendoilplease on August 5, 2006 - 12:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Remember what happened to all the 6-digit Income Yuppie Engineers who were employed by the Telecom industry until the year 2000 when the Bubble Burst? (many showed up at Salvation Army shelters).

There will be a lot of Former 6-Digit Earners in bread lines in the future.  

Many are extremely complacent and up to their eye-balls in debt... so do NOT walk under open windows of Banks and other former bastions of the parasitic 6 digit earners.

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GLT149 on August 5, 2006 - 2:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'd say that many more 5 digit earners are complacent and up to their eyeballs in debt.  There is nothing to gain in blasting "6 digit" earners.  And if there are bread lines in the future, it will include mostly the 4 and 5 digit earners as well as many 6 digit earners. The ones who will make it through this relatively unscathed are the non-earners, the independently wealthy who have assets in the 7 and 8 digit range.
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TrueKaiser on August 5, 2006 - 2:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
and the waltens(owners of wall-mart) will be hunkered down in their military like bunker siping champagne
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GLT149 on August 5, 2006 - 4:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
exactly.
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Magnus Redin on August 5, 2006 - 4:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And how fun would that be for them?
(Ok, bunkers are fun and great to have when there is war but they are not a place to live in. )
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TrueKaiser on August 5, 2006 - 6:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
i said military like :P
from what little i have heard they have all the protection that a normal military bunker has but also they have some trappings of the rich. hence the champagne :)
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