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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (394609)	6/27/2008 4:16:47 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575974

"One guy I read says he thinks the spec portion is around 50%. Most others say 15-20%. What do you hear....if anything?" It varies all over the place. Prices do jump every time there is talk about taking down Iran. But that is to be expected. Personally, I am beginning to wonder if the speculators have much to do with it. What we may be seeing is the realization that we are at peak oil. Or, at least close. Saudi Arabia is straining and they might squeeze out another 10%. Then again, they might not. What gave me pause was when I researched to refinery expansion that is going on in the US. All that I found was focused on heavy, sour crude. As you have noted, the economics are in the light, sweet camp. Yet, the oil companies are investing in heavy, sour crude. They have avoided that for decades. Most of the refineries that handle sour crude are independents who need every penny they can squeeze to stay in business. If the majors are going for the sour stuff, that tells me they have crunched the numbers and have come to the realization that there won't be much of the good stuff coming online. So, to maximize their current investment, they are putting in the equipment they need to make sure they can get past no more sweet crude.