<EROEI Short #4: Bootstrap-EROEI The Oil Drum DrumBeat: September 7, 2007>

49 comments on This Week in Petroleum 9-06-07

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Gail the Actuary on September 6, 2007 - 8:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I got an e-mail from Jane Van Ryan (the coordinator of the calls) saying that she would be on vacation the first part of September. That may explain the lull in calls.

In the July 18 Conference call, I asked about future inventories, and the response was pretty much that we would have to wait and see. This was the discussion:

MS. TVERBERG: This is Gail Tverberg from The Oil Drum. I know the gasoline inventory has kind of been a problem, and I know, even this week, they’re talking about being on the low-ish side again. Do you folks have some thoughts on this situation? Is it going to get worse towards the end of the summer or what?

00:04:15 MR. PLANTING: This is Ron. We did see a small increase in gasoline inventories this week, which figures we published for the week ending, what July 13, so that’s a little more recent data than what we have in the June report. Still, demand has been strong, refinery outages have slowed production to some extent, but this week, we did see utilization pick up. So where it goes from here, we’ll just have to wait and see, but that was a positive note.

00:04:45 MR. FELMY: I would also add that one of the reasons why we did
have the tighter markets in the first part of the year was because of an unforeseen decline in imports, whereas since post-Katrina and Rita, we had seen imports of gasoline, which are usually about 12 percent of our supplies, had surged in in well excess of a million barrels a day, up to a million and a half barrels a day. For a variety of reasons, including some refinery problems in Europe, a strike and so on, we actually saw imports drop down to around 900,000 barrels a day.

Now, the good news is that since about the beginning of the second quarter, we’ve seen continued surges, and even last week, they were, what, about 1.3 million barrels a day. So that’s important in terms of additional supplies, and when you marry that with continued record production from the refineries, both because we’ve got higher capacity this year and higher yields, it’s helpful in terms of having those incremental supplies, but we still have a relatively tight market, as the recent past has demonstrated.

MS. TVERBERG: Thank you.

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WNC Observer on September 7, 2007 - 8:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks. So in other words, whether or not I can continue to get my gas tank filled at this point pretty much totally depends upon an uninterrupted stream gasoline imports coming in.

And the thought occurs to me: Isn't gasoline a pretty hazardous substance to be hauling around across the oceans?

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Starship Trooper on September 7, 2007 - 10:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

In reference to your question about gasoline...it can be dangerous to haul around (after all, it is a flammable product in the form which we use it). But in some ways it's much easier to deal with gasoline than, say, oil. Much easier to pump into and out of ocean going vessels transporting the fuel. And we barge or rail ship lots of gasoline around because pipelines to large bulk storage facilites don't go "everywhere." Besides, that gasoline in your vehicle's tank probably came to the gas station in one of the many 8,000 gallon tanker trucks that routinely distribute more than 9.3 million barrels of gasoline per day (that's about 49,000 roundtrip cycles for these trucks every day).

Notably, gasoline can only burn if the vapor concentration is between the upper and lower explosive limit (sometimes referred to as the flammable limit). For gasoline, that's between 14,000 ppm and 76,000 ppm, if memory serves. Outside of those limits and the vapor cannot burn (and precautions are taken to keep vapor concentrations outside the flammable range). Other precautions are taken during liquid transfer to prevent static buildup and discharge that might accidentally ignite a flammable mixture.

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49 comments on This Week in Petroleum 9-06-07

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