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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40501)	3/21/2005 9:13:43 PM
From: ChanceIs	Respond to of 206101

<<We still have "SIGNIFICANT" Refining OUTPUT remaining in the US and Globally.>> Hey Slider. Don't you read the news??? The White house says, "The comments, made by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, represent just the latest effort by the White House to politicize the cost of crude oil and to use it as a battering ram to push President George W. Bush's package of energy bills through congress....................For instance, he said that one reason gasoline prices are surging in the U.S. is related to the fact the nation's refining capacity is inadequate to meet demand." So there it is - no excess refinery capacity. Having listened to the White House, I then look at the EIA data on gasoline stocks and see them 5% above the five year band and can't resolve the two. I think we are talking paper traders here, although Diana's comments about the pot being full and the cupboard bare certainly can't be ignored.

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40501)	3/21/2005 9:16:38 PM
From: ihor43us	Respond to of 206101

Slider, you are right! Us "permabulls" are so stupid. Why we even believe that the 24 million registered SUVs and 12 million registered minivans in the US of A will keep their driving in check. <http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/viusff/ec02tvff-us.pdf> I mean they have to, right? The AMAZINGLY HUGE extra 5 million barrels PER MONTH translates to a humongous extra 220 million gallons of gasoline per month (5M x 44). If those stupid drivers aren't careful they could use up the (220M/36M) extra 6 gallons per vehicle per month just by going on one extra shopping trip. Now wouldn't that be thoughtless of them? Gee, I sure wish I was as smart as you. But I think I will remain a stupid neo-permabull. Can't help it, its the genes. JMVHO Ihor

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40501)	3/21/2005 9:26:35 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206101

Slider, OK, I may be a PermaBull. I may not be qualified to comment on this. I do rely on my friend, an ex-Wall Street energy analyst, and people like Matt Simmons, over and above the Johnny-come-latelys on CNBC, and the evening news. People who should know tell me we have Peak Oil. I listen to them. <There is significant Refinery Capacity remaining in Asia> You raise a great many points in your post to refute my claim that the US has little spare refining capacity. I'd like to focus on the statistics, though. The 97% utilization rate is real, and your '10% from other sources' brings it down to maybe 80%, still 15% above the 70% which is the norm for most sectors. Analysts and fund managers who are telling us that oil prices are susceptible to supply interruptions are merely stating facts. Whether it is strikes in Nigeria or Norway, or the threat of same, or angry words from Venezuela, the market is on edge. Perhaps the US has secured oil supply in Iraq. Perhaps pumping that oil right now is not in the best interests of the US vis a vis relations with China. On your conspiracy theory, I don't know, it is all speculation. While I'm not saying that one point in your post being in error invalidates all your points, I will say that I don't have the ability to check all of your claims. I did research one of your points, on imports of gasoline from Asian refineries. This is not a big portion of imports at present. First I went here 'Where does my gasoline come from?": eia.doe.gov Asia isn't even listed. Is it a sub-sector under 'other regions'. If it is, they supply <15%, not really significant. Why is that? Could it be that delivery costs from Asia are somewhat prohibitive? Is is economical to ship crude from producers, eg Persian Gulf, through Asian nations to be processed as gasoline? This EIA document analyzing spare refining capacity doesn't list Asia either: eia.doe.gov Actually, this document Feb 2005 (which has an interesting comment on contango as well) has a graph, at the end, and Asian utilization is in the 80%-90%+ range in 2 out of 3 line items: omrpublic.iea.org I have to then ask, where is all this spare Asian capacity? There is a file of gasoline imports by company which has the origin by country. "The latest monthly Company Level Imports files", here: eia.doe.gov If you click on that .xls file and then sort by country, the volumes from Asian countries are low, and there aren't many Asian countries listed. This would seem to match the above EIA document analyzing spare capacity which doesn't mention Asia. This report has Japanese refinery utilization at 91-92% for Dec 04/Jan 05. www.opec.org/home/Monthly%2520Oil%2520Market%2520Reports/2005/pdf/MR022005.pdf+asian+refining+utilization&hl=en I know that some Asian nations have capacity, like Singapore, but that is mainly due to countries like India refining more domestically. In fact, the EIA has reported refineries in Asia are still not equipped to refine sour crudes without resulting in high sulfur content gasoline. The EIA report (above) reports that Indian, Chinese refineries have not retooled, see page 3. Therefore, I don't think you can even count this capacity, because it is not capacity that could produce gasoline from heavy crude for the US, the area of the refinery market where capacity is most needed. What is needed is up-to-date heavy oil refining capacity. I don't think you're going to find that easily in Asia. D