California, might be time to fill up the gas tanks

[sammyg2]

'Specially southern California, but will probably effect the bay area too.

[Joe Bob]

Always the optimistic bearer of good news on the fuel situation....WTF happened this time?

[crustychief]

Drawdown for maintenance and summer fuel blend perhaps?

[Scott R]

Prices shot up in the last 48 hours here in the mountains as well. Was something like $2.75 on Sunday, $3.10 today. Something break down again?

[gprsh924]

Unless you have a 500 gallon auxiliary tank you can fill, I can't imagine there is any real savings to filling up you tank today before the price rises tomorrow. You'll just be filling it up again 4 days from now.

[vash]

what happened?

[creaturecat]

think what it would cost if Canada wasn't selling oil to the US for one half the world price.
Meanwhile we Canucks pay world price at home. go figure.

[Jim Bremner]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

think what it would cost if Canada wasn't selling oil to the US for one half the world price.
Meanwhile we Canucks pay world price at home. go figure.

Proof?

[sammyg2]

First, there were several unit rebuilds going on plus the chevron richmond fire last year which is still down. then, the rumors flying are that another major So Cal FCC unit (gasoline maker) trashed it's largest most important machine and it's gonna take a month to fix (unconfirmed).
Not gonna mention and names but it's initials are CVX.

There was enough surplus supply in Ca. to cover the maintenance and other issues, but this latest might be enough to push it over the top.
If the speculators start buying up everything available on the spot market in hopes it''ll go up, it should skyrocket.
Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell for sure but I'll be surprised it if doesn't. The opportunity is there.

Los Angeles Gasoline Gains as Refineries Perform Maintenance
By Eliot Caroom - Jan 25, 2013 1:51 PM PT
..Spot gasoline in Los Angeles strengthened against futures after Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) was said to be shutting an alkylation unit at its Wilmington plant next week and gasoline stockpiles on the West Coast fell.

Valero’s 78,000-barrel-a-day refinery near Los Angeles will shut the unit for about seven to 10 days of repairs on a depropanizer, a person familiar with the plans said yesterday. Bill Day, a spokesman at Valero’s headquarters in San Antonio, said by e-mail that he couldn’t confirm the planned work.

California-blend gasoline, or Carbob, in Los Angeles gained 4.75 cents to 26 cents a gallon against gasoline futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 3:51 p.m. East Coast time, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s the highest level for the fuel since Oct. 15.

The alkylation unit at Wilmington was shut Dec. 21 to repair a leak, as was the plant’s fluid catalytic cracker. Both units were started last week and the cracker has “not yet reached planned rates,” Day said.

Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Phillips 66 (PSX) reported equipment shutdowns and companies including BP Plc (BP/) and Tesoro Corp. (TSO) are performing maintenance on process units in Southern California.

West Coast gasoline inventories for the Padd 5 region fell for the first time in five weeks, declining 217,000 barrels to 36 million in the seven days ended Jan. 18, according to the Energy Information Administration, an Energy Department agency. Distillate fuel oil inventories tumbled 7.8 percent to 15.1 million barrels.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eliot Caroom in New York at ecaroom@bloomberg.net

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

think what it would cost if Canada wasn't selling oil to the US for one half the world price.
Meanwhile we Canucks pay world price at home. go figure.

Different qualities of crude demand different prices. ANS (alaskan north slope) is a premium crude, light and sweet. Same with most of the saudi oil. Plus there are infrastructures in place to move it to where it needs to go. That makes it economical and drives the price up. They demand full price.
WTI (west texas intermediate) is not as good as the premium crude so it sells a little cheaper. Since tejas is chock full of pipelines and they have plenty of refineries and also that gulf thing, moving the oil is easy. Makes it reasonably attractive.

The crappier heavy sour oil sells at a large discount because the yield is lower and it costs a whole bunch more to refine due to the sulfur, and it tears up the equipment faster.

So iffn you're talking about the bakken crude, there are other factors at work. First, it's in the wrong place. We need it in other places, but it's stuck up there. gotta send lots of it in rail cars, not as efficient as pipeline and it's a huge bottleneck.
That makes shipping it more expensive and cause the oil to be cheaper. Plus it aint all that clean.

Then there's your tar sands oil. Nasty stuff. Definately not cream of the crop.
They sell it cheap because it is cheap. Plus it's in the wrong place. can't get there from here, gotta start from someplace else.

Since there is a boon going on in north dakota, wyoming, and sass-catch-you-juan there is an oversupply in that region and it's trapped. They're making more than they can ship by rail and that makes it really, really cheap locally.

If you-bummer would OK the keystone pipeline that oil would go up as the shipping got cheaper. Everyone would win.


Gotta talk apples to apples, 'cause rotten oranges ain't worth as much.

[Hawkeye's-911T]

By Jim Bremner: Proof?

While not exactly 'dead-balls accurate' - at today's price at the pump (for 85) here in Vancouver, we are paying $4.77 per US Gal. which will give you a rough indication.

[strupgolf]

Originally Posted by vash

what happened?

The Shah of Buromonstan had a bowel movement and it did'nt go well.

[aigel]

I fill mine up every 2-3 weeks. 500 miles. But now I learn it may have IMS bearing type failure on the fuel pump!?

TDI left on a rollback

G

[stealthn]

Ah it's not cheap here even though our province has the majority of it, the government taxes the crap out of it. Not to mention it goes up in price without reason just before every long weekend...

[creaturecat]

proof?

this is common knowledge.
google it yourself.
why do you think Alberta aka the tar sands wants to export to Europe?

Quote de creaturecat

think what it would cost if Canada wasn't selling oil to the US for one half the world price.

Meanwhile we Canucks pay world price at home. go figure.

Proof?

[creaturecat]

http://alberta.ca/albertacode/images/Benchmark-Crude-Prices.pdf

[sammyg2]

As I posted earlier, there are a couple problems with canadian tar sands oil.
It's lower quality, meaning heavy sour. it has a high percentage of long chain hydrocarbons like asphalts and tars and contains more sulfur and impurities than higher quality benchmark oils. That makes it more expensive to refine and produces a lower yield without additional refining process like delayed cokers and vacuum units.
Plus it's land-locked with no major pipelines which makes it more expensive to ship.

Maya, a benchmark for oil set in Mexico, is similar in quality to Alberta’s WCS, but sells $43 more than Alberta's bitumen (as of January 11, 2013), at $101 per barrel in the market. Oil from Mexico has direct access to the ocean where it can reach international markets. For that reason, it fetches a higher price than Alberta’s oil.

[creaturecat]

so.
the fact remains.
half price oil.

[BRPORSCHE]

ok creaturecat, i'll bite.

I'll agree that the tar sands are half price oil. Yet it does not produce half priced gasoline. Have you ever seen the different grades of crude from around the world and actually felt the different viscosities? Once you see something like that you start to understand why it's a cheap oil.

Sammy is the resident expert on this topic by far. I am just an upstream guy that works in E&P, so I am not quite as familiarized with the refining process.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by stealthn

...Not to mention it goes up in price without reason just before every long weekend...

I $u$pect there may be a rea$on, but I have NO idea what it could be
Happens here all the time on any "reason"...spikes up like a rocket (3-4 times per day at some stations)...down like a floating feather later.