201 comments on DrumBeat: June 17, 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Show without comments | PDF version
201 comments on DrumBeat: June 17, 2007
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? - Part I
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Oilwatch Monthly November 2009
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
- The Bullroarer - Friday 20th November 2009
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore; that has profound geopolitical implications.”
—Anne Korin, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (May 1, 2005)
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Any one else see this?
http://www.ksfy.com/news/local/8027942.html
Quote:
Gas Shortage Leads to Empty Pumps
For most of us, rising prices have been the major concern when it comes to gas. But on Friday, it was a different problem plaguing some Sioux Falls drivers.
As people pulled up to a gas station is southeast Sioux Falls, they were greeted with signs they didn't expect. Stations out of gas because of a shortage.
Gas terminals are empty across South Dakota. From Sioux Falls to Yankton to Sioux City, they are all out. And tankers cannot find anywhere to fill up.
"More so this summer it seems and they're saying it's supposed to get worse before it gets better but there's just not enough fuel coming down the pipeline into the delivery system," said BP owner Shane Oien.
Interesting. They don't really say why there's no gas.
Everyone seems kinda calm about not having gasoline. On a side not, I saw my first Valero gas station close in the KC metro area which surprised me since Valero specializes in refining sour crudes. I would think they would be doing the best in a sour crude world.
I see more and more gas stations closing around the metro. It's not a huge rush to close down, but one by one their numbers are diminishing.
Where you used to have two different stations across from each other, I'm starting to see only one. I have mentioned before that many BP stations had closed around the metro which does not surprise me since they are usually several cents more than the other stations.
A strange thought just occurred to me after reading your post and looking back at the lead comment with link to gas stations running out of gas...Do gas stations going out of business increase, decrease, or change the MOL? My first thought is that the MOL would be decreased by a tiny amount as you can't run a holding tank down to zero (or, it's uncouth to). So consolidating stations would seem to lower MOL. But more importantly, it will decrease storage capacity and increase the reliance on JIT fuel delivery, causing a decrease in resiliency in the system. i.e. since there is now only one station, with it's normal fuel supply, there is no other station to go to when the first station runs out.
I agree, I think that fewer gas stations will reduce the MOL by a small amount. This will be true up until we reach the point where it is actually hard to find a gas station. Then, if people have to go out of their way to get gas, our situation will be worse. We're nowhere close to that yet. At least here in Houston, it seems that there is a gas station on every block. Often, multiple gas stations are side by side or across the street, and most convenience stores sell gas as well.
You've made a reasonable argument but as we've often learned, reasonable arguments are often contradicted by fact. Want to do everyone some good deed? See if you can validate your argument from actual data. It's a good argument but basing conclusions from it is premature until we can validate it. Good luck!
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
I think the oil shocks from the 70s provide some good data. Gas station closings and "out of gas" signs, coupled with rising gas prices, induce panic buying and hoarding, drawing down stocks faster, increasing the likelihood of dipping below the MOL.
Well, where is the data? Just because certain events occurred doesn't mean they were related unless we can show that. I'd love to see some correlation between these factors that looks reasonable so where is it?
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
This is terrible: what is MOL? I'm hoping, hoping, hoping it's not too obvious.
You're better than me. I was afraid to ask.
Minimum Operating Level. The oil products (gasoline, etc.) required to keep the system operating. Pipelines full, barges of gasoline in transit from refinery to the filling station nearest you, quarter full tanks at the deport nearest you to fill up the gasoline tankers.
I THINK it also includes gasoline at the corner filling station as well (it should).
The minimum inventory required to prevent spot shortages.
Best Hopes for Spot Shortages and High Prices (except at harvest time),
Alan
Minimum Operating Level of the Distribution pipelines. It goes in one end, they take it out at the other. But the pipe has to be full to work. Last figure I saw was 185 million barrels. That's what's in the pipeline you can't take out. The minimum amount necessary to keep the fuel flowing through the pipeline. In other words, if you have 195 million barrels, you can only take out 10 million barrels.
How our distribution pipelines work.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/ulsd/pdf/appendix_c.pdf
Clearly, the pumps were empty because of a "lack of demand." Nobody wants the stuff.
In any case back in the real world where most of us live, spot shortages are just a sign of being barely above MOL. Nationwide, we have less than two days of supply in excess of MOL. So, in some areas we are going periodically drop down very close to MOL, resulting in empty gas stations. We saw it here in Dallas when gasoline was being shipped in tanker trucks up to Chicago.
The East Coast could be a real problem. Expect to see tanker truck convoys of gasoline headed to the East Coast from other regions.
Let's see:
Door #1: We will continue to see--essentially forever--an exponential rate of increase in the consumption of and import of a finite fossil fuel supply: http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/28/Data_4weeks.png
OR
Door #2: At some point, we will see a bidding war for the declining net export capacity of crude oil and petroleum products: http://static.flickr.com/97/240076673_494160e1a0_o.png
Some industry "spin" on the refinery issue....
Oil industry sees drop in future gasoline demand, is scaling back refinery expansions
They learned that one from the Saudi's who are scaling back their infrastucture expansion as there just isn't enough demand for oil. They also announced black is white and 2+2=5.
Balck is white or rather white is black, here is how I can prove it. Stare at the sun with one eye, If you lock your eye on it, you will soon get the phase shift from the staring at the object in this case a Medium level Yellow star we call the sun, but it is bright white to most of your normal eyes and then the stare turns it to black.
Your eyes flicker at 3 times per second It is the Human eye's refresh rate. When you stare at an object you get tunnel vision and you get the phase shift of white to black and other neat things going on. Staring without turning off your refresh rate is hard to do when you look at the sun, and don't do it for longer than a few seconds, it can leave spots before your eyes. I think that the limit is a bit over 3 to 9 minutes of staring and your eyes recieve permanant damage from looking at the sun. Call me crazy I can make a decent sextant with on hand and plot courses that way.
I'm convinced that gasoline shortages will be the tipping point for awareness - one can argue all day about how much oil is left in the world, but if you can't buy gas when you "need" it these esoteric discussions quickly vaporize.
I expect any news about local shortages to be contained locally - in other words, the national MSM will avoid any mention of such things for as long as possible. If some dumb shlub in Sioux Falls gets caught with kiddie porn on his computer it will be the headline on CNN, but gasoline shortages won't be mentioned until that elephant-in-the-room starts sitting on people.
The MSM will report on this problem when the elephant is peeling squashed carcasses off its feet and throwing them at the wall. IOW, when there are riots and shootings in the gas station queues.
I suspect you dropped an 'h' and mistyped, if you are trying to point to what the MSM needs to have happen to stimulate appropriate coverage.
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
I'm convinced that gasoline shortages will be the tipping point for awareness ...
Hm, they'll produce heat, but I'm not sure they'll produce light. It all depends on what the citizenry believes has caused the shortages. This will be greatly influenced by the media. PO will be low down on the list of causes presented.
Hmmm...Saudi Arabia's oil consumption rises 6.2% in 2006 (via 321energy)
110k b/d more - not terribly significant right now. OTOH, over time...
Also, let's not forget Door #3, more complicated and expensive sources (biofuel, CTL, etc.) increasing over time. It's not mutually exclusive with Door #2. Not a simple picture, a messy one.
From 2005 to 2006, the top five net exporters (half of net exports in 2006) showed a 1.3% decline in production, a 5.5% increase in consumption and a 3.3% decrease in exports (Total Liquids, EIA).
We are working on a paper on the top five. The high case production rate will be no decline. Assuming a 5% rate of increase in consumption per year, this would mean about a 3% annual decline in net exports.
I don't have the hard numbers yet on HL projections, but if we assume a 5% annual decline rate in production (especially when Russia starts declining), and a 5% annual rate of increase in consumption, exports by the top five would be at more or less zero in about 14 years. This would be a decline rate of about 22% per year in net exports by the top five.
Mexico is currently showing a 16% annual decline rate in exports (down 18% from 1/06 to 4/07), and from 2000 to 2005, the UK showed an annual decline rate of 60% per year in net exports.
So the projected 22% decline rate would be between these two real life case histories.
IMO, the very lifeblood of the world industrial economy--net crude oil and petroleum product exports--is draining away in front of our very eyes. The only question is how soon the patient is going to die.
It does look dire at 22%/year, but consider the situation of the exporters: most of them are major importers of finished goods and food. They won't be able to maintain domestic consumption increases in the face of import prices rising in step with oil prices. This will restrain the domestic growth and put the export decline closer to the total rate of decline.
Not that we don't have plenty of problems which needed action years ago, but we may not be in such a bad situation as you think.
>The East Coast could be a real problem. Expect to see tanker truck convoys of gasoline headed to the East Coast from other regions.
I haven't seen any shortages yet, and pump prices have declined by a few pennies. Traffic is crazy with morning rush hour starting at about 5:45 AM and ending about 10 AM, evening RUSH hour starts about 3:15 PM and ends about 8 PM. On the flip side, commuter train traffic is up, but its not having any noticable impact on commuting traffic. It seems that traffic congestion is getting worse despite the higher prices and slowing economy.
In Michigan there are some "Share-A-Ride" lots along the Interstates where people who carpool can leave their cars. They are as full as I've ever seen them.