 | The Bullroarer - Tuesday 19th February 2008 | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer - Wednesday 20 February 2008 |  |
4 comments on Oil breaks $100, hits new all-time high
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Contact
- anz at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Archives
GAIA Host Collective
That post was a joint effort from Phil and I - I wouldn't technically class the US as being in recession (yet).
I think the official definition is negative growth for 2 consecutive quarters.
I don't understand your comment about WTI and refineries. Do you mean that WTI sells for less because the demand (from US refineries) has been lower than expected ? I thought it was partly a quality issue - Tapis is lighter / sweeter than WTI...
Tapis is slightly lighter and sweeter than WTI, but that's not most of the price difference we've been seeing.
It's simply that with several US refineries down, there's been less West Texas Intermediate actually on the market. The Texan oil producers send their crude to those US refineries - but they couldn't refine it so it just stayed in the ground for a bit, Texan production was down. Some gets sent overseas for refining, but the transport of it adds to the costs. When this was going to change was not perfectly knowable, you never know with big machines like refineries. So the future ability of WTI producers to be able to have their stuff refined and turned into something actually useful (unlike crude itself) was uncertain. Thus the futures sold for less.
Whereas Tapis has kept flowing into and out of the various refineries - including one at Geelong where a mate of mine works.