Petroleum Report for Week Ending 3/24/06

[BoeingBoy]

Especially for FWAAA, a little more prompt post of this week's report

Crude Oil Inventories - 340.7 million bbls, up 2.1 million bbls
Domestic Crude Production - 5,063,000 bbls/day (down 7.8% YoY)
Net Imports (imports less exports) - 9,858,000 bbl/day (down 1.6% YoY)

Refinery Input - 14,459,000 bbls/day (down 4.5% YoY)
Refinery Utilization was 87.0% for the week.

Jet Fuel Supplied (4 week average) - 1,596,000 bbls/day (down 1.8% YoY)
Jet Fuel Supplied (week of 3/27/06) - 1,613,000 bbls/day

Jet Fuel Stocks on 3/10/06:
Total Domestic - 42,400,000 bbls (up 10.1% YoY and up 1.0%WoW)
- East Coast - 10,300,000 bbls (up 100,000 WoW)
- Midwest - 8,300,000 bbls (dn 300,000 WoW)
- Gulf Coast - 13,000,000 bbls (up 200,000 WoW)
- Rocky Mountain - 700,000 bbls (no change WoW)
- West Coast - 10,000,000 bbls (up 200,000 WoW)

Jet Fuel Production (4 week avg):
Total Domestic - 1,522,000 bbls/day (up 77,000 bbls WoW)
- East Coast - 104,000 bbls/day (up 14,000 bbls WoW)
- Midwest - 249,000 bbls/day (up 51,000 bbls WoW)
- Gulf Coast - 750,000 bbls/day (dn 1,000 bbls WoW)
- Rocky Mountain - 24,000 bbls/day (up 9,000 bbls WoW)
- West Coast - 369,000 bbls/day (up 27,000 bbls WoW)

Jet Fuel Imports (4 week avg):
Total Imports - 161,000 bbls/day (up 59,000 WoW)
- East Coast - 45,000 bbls/day (dn 15,000 WoW)
- Midwest - 0 bbls/day (unchanged)
- Gulf Coast - 1,000 bbls/day (unchanged WoW)
- Rocky Mountain - 0 bbls/day (unchanged)
- West Coast - 115,000 bbls/day (up 74,000 WoW)

Spot prices on 3/10/06:
NY Harbor Jet - $1.9530/gal (up 4.50 cents WoW)
Gulf Coast Jet - $1.8815/gal (up 0.45 cents WoW)
Los Angeles Jet - $1.8950/gal (dn 1.50 cents WoW)
WTI-Cushing Crude - $63.90/bbl (up $1.09 WoW)

Bloomberg is currently showing WTI-Cushing at $66.45 (closing on 3/2\93/06).

For the last time, the same chart. Next week the March averages will be available and this chart will be updated.

View attachment 4715

Jim

 

[FWAAA]

Especially for FWAAA, a little more prompt post of this week's report

Excellent.

Serious price increases here - and today, oil is up over $66/bbl. Only another 50% increase and my prediction of $100/bbl will be accurate.

 

[BoeingBoy]

WTI-Cushing closed @ $67.15 today (Thursday), though NYMEX has dropped 25 cents in after-market trading. Seems Boone Pickens might agree with you, FWAAA:

"I think you'll see $75 before you see $60 again," Boone Pickens, the Dallas hedge fund manager, said in a CNBC interview. Asked if prices might reach $100 or $150 a barrel, he said, "$100 crude? Sure, it could happen."

Bloomberg Article

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

Something else I haven't reported on in a long time for several reasons - the quick fixes were accomplished by the end of last year, the refinery data isn't published as it was by the EIA, the other data is published less frequently.....

According to MMS (Minerals Management Service, which controls oil & natural gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico),

- there are still 87 production platforms evacuated (not producing), which is 10.67% of the total platforms in the GOM. All GOM oil rigs are back in production.

- there is still 343,172 bbls/day of crude oil production "shut in", meaning previous production capacity still out of service. This is 22.88% of normal crude production in the GOM.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, which controls mineral rights onshore and up to 3 miles offshore, reports that 28.8% of the state's normal crude production capacity of 203,139 bbls/day has not yet been restored.

Jim

 

[imca85]

Anybody looking for an oilfield job???


Looks like more secure future than airlines at the moment.

 

[SpinDoc]

Excellent.

Serious price increases here - and today, oil is up over $66/bbl. Only another 50% increase and my prediction of $100/bbl will be accurate.

"Excellent"?

Dude, what is your problem? Do you delight in the fact that higher oil prices dramatically affect the bottom line of most domestic air carriers, and the average consumer who has to spend more of his/her disposable income on petroleum products? You remind me of the smug ### holes in the oil industry that are making egregious profits off the backs of the common man. Get a life and dump your greed, and while you're at it, convince at least two of your futures investor friends to dump their holdings as well. If we can start the ball rolling to depress the futures market, then the overall economy will improve and there will be other industries to invest in that will increase your riches due to falling oil prices.

 

[FCYTravis]

Increasing oil prices will help force us to work toward the inevitable future when there is no more oil to pump out of the ground, or we expend more energy getting the oil out than we get in a usable energy return. At some point, perhaps soon, crude oil will be far more valuable as a raw material feedstock for plastics and chemicals than as something you simply rapidly oxidize in a turbofan engine.

The world's supply of oil is finite. We are burning up a non-renewable (in human scale) resource and as that resource grows scarcer and more in demand, the natural laws of capitalism will dictate its uses. Airlines will have to deal with the new energy economy just as much as every single person in the world does.

If anyone thinks oil prices will materially go down in any sort of long-term scale, they're utterly deluded. There is more demand than ever before, and the supply is inherently limited. That's a recipe for good old fashioned capitalistic pricing.

Far be it from me to be a random tree-hugger - hell, I work for a racing team that burns hundreds of gallons of high-test gasoline every week for no other reason than to chase a checkered flag - but there is a simple physical reality, and that is that oil is a dead-end, extremely finite energy source. In a capitalist system like ours, the one thing that can do the most to foster investment in research and development of viable and sustainable energy is an increase in the price of oil to the point where alternatives become the fiscally and environmentally responsible choice.

Is all this change going to hurt people? Is it going to make everything cost more? Is it going to disrupt our way of life? For sure. Obviously. But that's the price that we will pay for taking a century or two to completely use up a substance that took this Earth uncounted millions of years to create. It's not optional. There's no other choice, delusions of undiscovered crude oil seas notwithstanding. The sooner we realize it, and the more effort we make to find alternatives, the better off we'll all be.

 

[SpinDoc]

Increasing oil prices will help force us to work toward the inevitable future when there is no more oil to pump out of the ground, or we expend more energy getting the oil out than we get in a usable energy return. At some point, perhaps soon, crude oil will be far more valuable as a raw material feedstock for plastics and chemicals than as something you simply rapidly oxidize in a turbofan engine.

The world's supply of oil is finite. We are burning up a non-renewable (in human scale) resource and as that resource grows scarcer and more in demand, the natural laws of capitalism will dictate its uses. Airlines will have to deal with the new energy economy just as much as every single person in the world does.

If anyone thinks oil prices will materially go down in any sort of long-term scale, they're utterly deluded. There is more demand than ever before, and the supply is inherently limited. That's a recipe for good old fashioned capitalistic pricing.

Keep repeating this, and soon enough, people will believe it. My advice is, believe it to a point.

Sure, oil reserves all over the world are finite, that is something most rational people can agree upon. What is left out of that statement is that there are huge reserves within the U.S. that have not been explored, and they co uld be easily extracted if the environmental whackos would just shut their friggen traps and let the oil companies get to them.

Whether you believe it or not, there is a conspiracy to artificially limit the amount of oil that is available to the market. Economies around the world trade in oil to keep the value of their currency stable, and to even make it rise when necessary. We are seeing the effects of the worldwide manipulation of the oil markets to devalue the U.S. Dollar and increase the value of foreign currency, and it is being done through OPEC production limits, rhetoric about the Iraq War and lack of Iranian cooperation with their nuclear program, and U.S. environmental groups suing to prevent new drilling within the U.S. It's time for the U.S. Government to flex their power and demand more production from all sources, to stabilize the economy before it falls apart.

 

[FCYTravis]

Even if we started drilling in ANWR tomorrow, we'd never see a drop of it until 2015 at the earliest. At its peak production a decade later, ANWR would never supply more than 7/10 of one percent of the world's oil, and would decline every year thereafter.

Net ANWR effect on world oil prices at peak in 2025, according to the US Department of Energy? One penny per gallon lower. That's it.

There is no conspiracy, and we cannot drill our way to energy independence. We burn 25 percent of the world's oil consumption and have just three percent of its proven oil reserves - even including ANWR.

What other reserves in the US? Tell me. Seriously. Call up Shell and let them know. Or ChevronTexaco. They'd love to have at it, especially with oil prices where they are. They can sell every drop they supply and then some. The US government, for all its power and might, cannot magically make crude oil appear where none was before.

Read Ken Deffeyes - he was an oil company geologist, before they fired him because he wouldn't tell them what they wanted to hear, which was that there was plenty of oil. He told them there wasn't - and he's probably right. Even the very most optimistic forecasts say that oil production will peak forever in 25 years... and some more pessimistic Hubbertians say we've already peaked. Whichever you choose to believe, the end of cheap oil is not even a generation away. We ignore the future at our peril.

But you're partially right about the oil companies. Here's why: As long as we develop no alternatives to oil, we are hostage to the oil companies for their product to sustain our economy. Whatever they want to charge, we'll have to pay, because we can't live without oil.

If we as a society come up with a viable alternative to oil, we'll substantially reduce oil demand and thus take the monopoly pricing power away from ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP. Until then, we're like crack addicts - we'll do anything and pay any amount for just one more hit of crude. Big Oil gets to laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[BoeingBoy]

"Excellent"?

Dude, what is your problem?

FWAAA can certainly speak for himself, but I think the "Excellent " applied to my joke about the update being posted more timely this week. Last week we engaged in a little good natured ribbing about my update being tardy, which I continued this week with my opening line - notice that's the line of my OP that FWAAA quoted. So I certainly took this as just more of the friendly joking.....

Jim

 

[FWAAA]

FWAAA can certainly speak for himself, but I think the "Excellent " applied to my joke about the update being posted more timely this week. Last week we engaged in a little good natured ribbing about my update being tardy, which I continued this week with my opening line - notice that's the line of my OP that FWAAA quoted. So I certainly took this as just more of the friendly joking.....

As always, BoeingBoy, you're more astute than the average bear. And completely correct about my use of the and the "Excellent." I quoted the humorous part of your post and that's the part to which I responded. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

SpinDoc sounds very frustrated over the price of oil and jet fuel, and probably needs to vent the frustration somehow, so I'm glad to be the whipping boy. Better he verbally kick me than go home and actually kick the dog. B)