US oil boom shuts refineries and keeps supertankers at bay

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

US oil boom shuts refineries and keeps supertankers at bay
by Asjylyn Loder, January 09 2014, 05:38

NEW YORK — The US oil boom has put European refineries out of business and undercut West African crude suppliers. Now domestic drillers threaten to roil Asian markets and challenge producers in the Middle East and South America.

Fifteen European refineries have closed in the past five years, with a 16th due to shut this year, the International Energy Agency said, as the US went from depending on fuel from Europe to being a major exporter to the region.

Nigeria, which used to send the equivalent of a dozen supertankers of crude a month to the US, now ships fewer than three, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

And cheap oil from the Rocky Mountains, where output has grown 31% since 2011, will soon allow US west coast companies to cut back on imports of pricier grades from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that they process for customers in Asia, the world’s fastest-growing market.


Read more: http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/americas/2014/01/09/us-oil-boom-shuts-refineries-and-keeps-supertankers-at-bay

[KG]

1. unsurprisingly, gas / fuel prices haven't dropped.

[4dsc]

5. Its because we EXPORT refined oil products

we export an estimated one million barrels of refined oil products daily. That is keeping our gas prices up.

[truthisfreedom]

2. The elephant in the room is this: We have passed peak oil, and despite this momentary blip,

the world economy will collapse, perhaps within my lifetime, and that's simply sad. We could solve this if we focused on solar and wind and all other forms of power that do not put carbon into the atmosphere and do not burn our incredible resources. Oil is precious... but for PLASTICS and CHEMICALS we need to survive for thousands of years here.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/23/former-bp-geologist-peak-oil-is-here-and-it-will-break-economies/

[groundloop]

7. This engineer totally agrees....

We depend heavily on petroleum for making "stuff", and that's probably not going to change in the next several hundred years (or more). It's just so stupid to be burning up a source of raw materials when we have viable options for producing energy from the sun. It all comes down to money, the oil companies want to make money FAST by having their oil burned (which of course puts millions of tons of CO2 into the air).

[adirondacker]

12. +1000. Well stated!

This was a strong argument in a mineral and resource economics class I took 15 years ago.

[4dsc]

14. The sun is not a substitute for oil

When will people realize that solar power is different from oil. We are an oil based society and we cannot become a solar society because everything made involves oil somewhere.

[DeSwiss]

3. So when will......

...the gas wars* start?

- K&R


* - Info for post-Boomers

[DCBob]

4. Few would have predicted this scenario just a few years ago.

quite remarkable.

[RandiFan1290]

6. Mission Accomplished!

[Thor_MN]

8. It would be interesting to see Gasoline price overlayed on that graph. NT

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. All that new production? Mostly from oil shale and fracking.

As far as oil shale goes? The decline rate per well looks like this:



This probably isn't a sustainable long-term thing, and US oil production is likely to decline again within a decade if not sooner.

[neverforget]

15. I used to live in Glendive, Mt on the edge of the Bakken formation from 1971-1981.

During the 70's, the oil was easy to get too so my dad decided to take a job in Billings, Mt and put our house up for sale. An oil man bought the house. Within a year, the Bakken boom of the 70's was a bust and he had to sell the house. This boom too shall pass but this time will be the last one.

[mitty14u2]

10. Saudi Arabia

Last Updated: February 26, 2013 (Notes)
full report

Refining/petrochemicals
According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Saudi Arabia has seven domestic refineries, with a combined crude throughput capacity of about 2.1 million bbl/d (of which Aramco's share is approximately 1.1 million bbl/d). Saudi Arabia continues to integrate its refinery projects with large petrochemicals complexes, in what has been described as the creation of petrochemical cities.

Planned domestic refineries or refineries under development include:

•Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company (SATORP) in Jubail is a 400,000 bbl/d joint venture with Total that is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2013. It will be an export refinery, run mainly Arab Heavy crude, and maximize production of diesel and jet fuel.
•Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) Limited, a joint venture with Chinese Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), will be able to process up to 400,000 bbl/d of Arab Heavy crude oil from the planned Manifa oil development by the end of 2014.
•Saudi Aramco is developing its 400,000 bbl/d Jazan refinery project in southwest Saudi Arabia. It will be able to process most of Saudi Arabia's crude oil grades by late 2016.
•Saudi Aramco is studying an expansion of its integrated Petro Rabigh Refinery and petrochemical joint venture, which currently has a capacity of 400,000 bbl/d.
Saudi Arabia has also initiated a number of clean fuels projects to provide more ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. These include the upgrades at the refineries at Yanbu in mid-2013 and Jubail by the end of 2013.


Source: CIA World Factbook

http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=SA

Another reason Saudi Arabia has new refineries coming on line, Oil prices are manipulated or monopolized fixing prices with zero oversight by are bought off Washington.

[L0oniX]

11. Anything to keep gas prices high.

[Dustlawyer]

13. It's so stupid to use all of our countries reserves up now as fast as we can do it!

After it is gone we will be 100% dependent on foriegn oil and we will not have advanced alternative energy one bit! The oil companies buy the politicians and then do what they want. These "Drill baby, drill" dumb asses act as if we have huge reserves instead of a single digit percentage of the world's oil reserves. Ever feel like we are all a more complicated, but just as stupid version of Lemmings?