Huge Oak & Cherry Score.

nolaegghead

@SGH - seems to me that the regulations need to focus more on the BOP so I don't have to piss pure crude oil like I did for a year after the Deepwater Horizon spill.  I ain't givin' up my oystahs.

SGH

@nolaegghead‌
I agree that the oil industry needs to be watched and held accountable for some of their blatant stupidity. As does all corporations. But on the other hand if you strangle them to death with over tight regulations that makes no sense nor serves any purpose except government greed, they merely pass it on to us the consumer. I concur fully with let's protect our wildlife and ecosystem. But also I miss 50 cent a gallon gasoline. The former Standard Oil Giants didn't get to be Giants by losing money. They pass the buck right on down to you and I. Always have, always will. And the end of the day, regulations do not cost the oil or power industry one cent. Why? You and I, the consumer pay for it. Just as a example, the oil lease that Exxon/Mobil is currently bringing to market out of the Gulf of Mexico (Exxon Hadrian South Reserve) was intentionally held for over 15 years after drilling. Why? They held out until they knew that gasoline would never fall below 3 dollars a gallon. This is to help offset the crazy sin tax imposed on the industry for drilling in the Gulf. It is paid for fully by the consumer at the pump.

nolaegghead

@SGH - the market for crude is not local.  What we pay is the going rate on the international market.  Any costs from regulations is irrelevant in what you pay for gasoline at the pump. There are no world-wide regulatory agencies that impact the cost for extraction insofar as what we end up paying.  Oil companies would like you to believe that this is why you pay more, because if they are less regulated, that money goes in their pockets.  The gas you buy may come from Canada, the middle east, or the gulf.  The international price is not impacted by safety regulations as much as the company you work for would like you to believe. 

Sorry my friend, but these are the facts.

Yes, I would like some smoke wood, next time we hook up, and it can't be soon enough, I'll snag some.  I'm going out of town next week to see my new grandson.  Damn, I'm getting old

SGH

@nolaegghead‌
I do concur with the majority of the above. My only point my friend is that at the end of the day any cost burdens applied to the oil industry will certainly be passed on to the consumer by any means necessary. Take global supply and demand out of the equation. Why? Most of the worlds reserves are held by the former Standards or subsidiarys thereof. Just under different names. Hence- Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Marathon, BP, Aramco, Esso ConocoPhillips, and so on. All Standards or spinoffs with ties to the former. This is absolute fact and not sentiment. I work for the greedy SOB's. Trust me when I say that they do not incur losses nor take kindly to losing money. They would rather lose their eternal soul than lose one cent. Greed does not describe them sufficently. Paying out or losing money is not even in there vocabulary. They are so good at passing the buck, if you figure the profit margins between upstream/downstream operations, profit margin approaches 300%. All at the consumers expense. Not through ground breaking technology or miricale refining operations nor good management. Simply by robbing the consumer any way that they can. They are the ones who invented and perfected "passing the buck". No other entity can seriously approach this, little lone match these numbers.

Now, I will be more than glad to hook you up with some wood. Which do you prefer? Oak, cherry or a combination of both my friend?

nolaegghead

@SGH - I'll take a little of both my friend.

The oil companies are out to make a few bucks.  No surprise there.   Whatever we can do to make them not screw the pooch while they're extracting it should be a directive of all of us living in the USA.  It's our oil. We are a nation of people, and we allow companies mineral rights that they pay for to extract and sell resources that belong to our collective nation.  We need to have effective, smart regulations so they don't cut corners in the pursuit of profit and **** us through environmental disasters.  I like my nature, my oystahs, my fishing, my back yard.  If regulations slow down gulf oil extraction because there are lower hanging fruit elsewhere, then so be it. That oil will be worth twice as much by the time they can develop the technology to extract it without drenching my fishing ground with oil, and these companies are international - they extract it wherever there's a profit to be made. 

If you want to lower the price at the pump, work on the supply and demand equation.  The price can be lowered through efficiency - lowering of demand. This also is a worldwide problem.  But the main reason gas prices are high is the blossoming of emerging industrialized nations - China, Indonesia, etc.  Demand is high.  Oil extraction is also at an all time high. 

Drill baby drill.  Darwin award winning trumpet of stupidity.  NOLA out.  Peace, baby, peace. 

SGH

@nolaegghead‌
Remember my friend. I have been off my medicine for 8 days so I get a little emotional here and there
Please don't think that I'm on the oil industry's side. That's certainly not the case. I'm just not totally against them either. In their defense though, everything that I own was purchased by money that I made working for Chevron, Shell, Aramco and Exxon/Mobil.
I'm done for the day my friend. Have a good one. SGH is standing down.

tarheelmatt

@SGH, I noticed on one of your shirts included Bechtel.  Did you work for them?  

Unfortunately/Fortunatley, the big oil companies help pay my bills as well, so I understand.  

johnkitchens

I also have made some money off of big oil. Not directly, but through one of the big oil contractors. 

SGH

@tarheelmatt‌ Yes sir. I did work for Bechtel. I was Senior Welding Engineer over the Prarie States power plant in Lively Grove Illinois. I was there just shy of 4 years brother tar before making the the jump to Exxon/Mobil.

tarheelmatt

@SGH, that is cool.  Sounds very interesting for sure.  We see a lot of Bechtel jobs out of Canada mostly.  Man they are sticklers.  We nicknamed them "Rect-tel".  

Ragtop99

nolaegghead said:

@SGH - the market for crude is not local.  What we pay is the going rate on the international market.  Any costs from regulations is irrelevant in what you pay for gasoline at the pump. There are no world-wide regulatory agencies that impact the cost for extraction insofar as what we end up paying.  Oil companies would like you to believe that this is why you pay more, because if they are less regulated, that money goes in their pockets.  The gas you buy may come from Canada, the middle east, or the gulf.  The international price is not impacted by safety regulations as much as the company you work for would like you to believe. 

Sorry my friend, but these are the facts.

Yes, I would like some smoke wood, next time we hook up, and it can't be soon enough, I'll snag some.  I'm going out of town next week to see my new grandson.  Damn, I'm getting old

That's true to a point, but even the actual market price of oil is set at a few locations.  In theory the prices should equalize adjusted for transportation costs, but there are times when Brent North Sea prices do not move in step with WTI or Henry Hub for example.  Overall, I do agree that the price of oil is market driven and within normal trading ranges, the cost of extraction is not relevant to the price paid.  

Refined product prices (e.g. gasoline) are trickier because regulation can directly and indirectly effect supply and capacity decisions.  It's pretty common to see to higher gasoline prices in the summer due to reformulation requirements than the price in the winter.  That's an example of regulatory requirements impacting price.  Local regulations, rather than federal regulations can have a lesser or no effect, but I would hesitate to suggest that no local regulations can effect the cost of gasoline at the refiner or distribution level.

nolaegghead

SGH said:

@nolaegghead‌ Remember my friend. I have been off my medicine for 8 days so I get a little emotional here and there Please don't think that I'm on the oil industry's side. That's certainly not the case. I'm just not totally against them either. In their defense though, everything that I own was purchased by money that I made working for Chevron, Shell, Aramco and Exxon/Mobil. I'm done for the day my friend. Have a good one. SGH is standing down.

@SGH - I too am a subcontractor that makes money from oil and chemical companies.   That's no reason to cut them any slack on being responsible.  They're making record profits and they're sitting on huge amounts of cash.

SGH

@nolaegghead‌ No doubt brother. But what you just said farther reinforces my hypothesis. Not matter what comes their way they still set new profit records every year and have done so since their inception. Why? Everyday there are new consumers to pass the buck to as it were. You can take supply and demand out of the equation. Why? They know how much reserves that they hold. What truly drives price is greed. Plain and simple. Right now they could drop pump prices to 5 cents a gallon and would still make more money than any other industry in the world by a huge and commanding margin. Again I'm not defending them at all. Just stating that the more you fine them the more they charge the consumer. Plain and simple. I work for the largest oil company in the known universe, formerly Standard Oil of New Jersey now Exxon/Mobil. Trust me my friend when I say the more they have to pay, the more you and I are going to have to pay. It's sad but it's so. They don't lose. Never have, never will.

SGH

@tarheelmatt‌ For the record:Bechtel sucks brother tar.

tarheelmatt

nolaegghead said:

SGH said:

@nolaegghead‌ Remember my friend. I have been off my medicine for 8 days so I get a little emotional here and there Please don't think that I'm on the oil industry's side. That's certainly not the case. I'm just not totally against them either. In their defense though, everything that I own was purchased by money that I made working for Chevron, Shell, Aramco and Exxon/Mobil. I'm done for the day my friend. Have a good one. SGH is standing down.

@SGH - I too am a subcontractor that makes money from oil and chemical companies.   That's no reason to cut them any slack on being responsible.  They're making record profits and they're sitting on huge amounts of cash.

When I quote to these guys I bump the margins a few more points.  If I filled the gas tank up before work, I bump the magins up times two!  

nolaegghead

Oil companies love high prices. 



Oil is a commodity.  There are variations of sour and sweet, but all the oil companies sell essentially the same products.  The extraction price varies widely throughout the world.  Saudi crude costs almost nothing to extract.  Deepwater extraction can cost orders of magnitude higher.  All the oil sells for the same price, regardless of how much it costs to extract.  They pick the lowest hanging fruit, my friend.  I'm just saying the BOP needs to f*cking work or we should fine them out of business and sell their leases to someone that can extract it without turning the Gulf of Mexico into a transmission oil sump.

SGH

The sweet/ sour is out the window now. We have a sour gas/condensate facility in Pascagoula, Theodore, Norco and Bell Chase. And several in Texas and California as well. The modern refinery is now set up with Catalyitc Type Crackers and hydrogen, reformer units. They can refine what ever is throwed at them at will. Don't fall into that trap brother Nola. The Pascagolua refinery built by SOKY was specifically built for just this very purpose. To refine Arabian light and Gulf heavy crude. They can't play that card any more.

nolaegghead

I know, I know.  Chemists and chemical engineers, and material scientists have the processing down pat.  They can make just about anything with a few simple feedstocks.  There are certain oil companies I won't buy my gas from (and they shall remain nameless on this forum).  If I run out of gas and I'm pushing my car in 98F heat and high humidity, I'll push it right past their station. 

SGH

I hate to say this but folks should by from the Giants. Why? They have the latest and greatest everything. Crackers, Reformer Heaters, High Pressure Cross Over Breech Lock Exchangers, Distilation Columns and feed stocks. Even their catalyst is geared toward a "specific" end product. The smaller independents are using hand me down obsolete technology from the Giants. Sad fact of life.

tarheelmatt

I do try to buy from the Giants most times.  I was buying from Murphy (Walmart) and Sheetz.  My car had a burnt valve that I feel was the cause of burning cheaper gas.  Now I try to buy from BP or Marathon.  

SGH

@tarheelmatt‌
On one hand I hate to give them my money but on the other hand, they do produce the superior product. No question of it.