Looks Like We May Be Prepping for War.

[Townsend]

There is a bigger reason we ship and import oil/gas.  You must have missed - or didn't read - my note some time back about how we now export more gasoline than we import. 

He ignored the article I posted stating the same thing.  You may be hitting a wall on this one.

[RecycleMichael]

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01

This site shows oil and gas lobbying efforts. Five times more money goes to republicans than democrats.

[heironymouspasparagus]

He ignored the article I posted stating the same thing.  You may be hitting a wall on this one.

I'm sure.  Just don't want anyone else who does listen to miss the real information.  So, I repeat.

[Hoss]

He ignored the article I posted stating the same thing.  You may be hitting a wall on this one.

Consider who they're conversing with.  I have easier conversations with my 6 year old nephew.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Consider who they're conversing with.  I have easier conversations with my 6 year old nephew.

Ya gotta keep in mind that he grew up in the same generational era that I did - he is in his fifties or so - and we were taught a lot of stuff that has been found to be just not so.  And that was passed on to the kids in many cases (reference; guido) and they are taking it to the nth degree. 

Reality about big oil/gas and significant portions of corporate America in general is kind of tough to accept because you tend to reference everything from your own point of view - and if that is from a point of morality and fair play and decent dealings with others, it can be difficult to accept that large organizations full of people a lot like you could do some of the things they appear to do.  And yeah, I know - that doesn't just apply to my generation - my kids and some of the grandkids are the same way.  Good decent people that really expect the world to be mostly that way, too.


But then there is the real world....

[Hoss]

Ya gotta keep in mind that he grew up in the same generational era that I did - he is in his fifties or so - and we were taught a lot of stuff that has been found to be just not so.  And that was passed on to the kids in many cases (reference; guido) and they are taking it to the nth degree. 

Reality about big oil/gas and significant portions of corporate America in general is kind of tough to accept because you tend to reference everything from your own point of view - and if that is from a point of morality and fair play and decent dealings with others, it can be difficult to accept that large organizations full of people a lot like you could do some of the things they appear to do.  And yeah, I know - that doesn't just apply to my generation - my kids and some of the grandkids are the same way.  Good decent people that really expect the world to be mostly that way, too.


But then there is the real world....

I don't think Gaspar is in his fifties.  Maybe early to mid 40s like myself.  Maybe even a little younger.  But what do I know.   

[heironymouspasparagus]

I don't think Gaspar is in his fifties.  Maybe early to mid 40s like myself.  Maybe even a little younger.  But what do I know.  

I thought he said something one time about being early '50s??  Whew!  If not, then the guy I see at the barbeque cooking is either not him, or is really aged way beyond his years!  Smoking meat may be as dangerous as smoking cigarettes.

[Gaspar]

Ya gotta keep in mind that he grew up in the same generational era that I did - he is in his fifties or so - and we were taught a lot of stuff that has been found to be just not so.  And that was passed on to the kids in many cases (reference; guido) and they are taking it to the nth degree. 

Reality about big oil/gas and significant portions of corporate America in general is kind of tough to accept because you tend to reference everything from your own point of view - and if that is from a point of morality and fair play and decent dealings with others, it can be difficult to accept that large organizations full of people a lot like you could do some of the things they appear to do.  And yeah, I know - that doesn't just apply to my generation - my kids and some of the grandkids are the same way.  Good decent people that really expect the world to be mostly that way, too.

But then there is the real world....

I'm not in love with the oil and gas industry.  But I also don't see it as very different from any other commodity traded.  I have several friends and family who own oil wells.  My family owns gas wells.  I hunt and fish on family property with several well sites.

The image of production, transport, and trading of this commodity is as skewed and inaccurate when portrayed by the left as many green energy projects are when portrayed by the right.

The difference is, fossil fuel is  currently functional and 84% of our economy relies on it.  So when the discussion turns to methods for IMMEDIATELY strengthening our economy and eliminating foreign dependence, 84% of that discussion must CURRENTLY revolve around fossil fuels. 

Sure, we need to continue to pursue ways to break our dependence from this energy source, but we're decades away, and have little chance of doing that if we continue to face an economic decline, or energy insecurity.

Today, President Obama with visit Cushing to plant a flag on the Keystone Pipeline.  We've watched the effects of economic pressure on this president, and it seems to be the primary method to motivate him into reasonable action.  For the past 3 years he has blamed his predecessor, the financial sector, the energy sector, foreign leaders, the lazy American people, Wall Street, Global Warming, a Democratic Congress, a split congress, the European economy, and Fox News, for the product of his policies.  While his trip is political in nature, I think it may represent some small recognition of failure and an attempt at healing.  The wife and I had dinner with a guy last weekend who works with TransCanada and he had a very suppressing take on why the president is visiting.  I am anxious to see if he is right.  If so, in the next few weeks we will get a big announcement that will drastically affect energy prices.

[Conan71]

Enough already. You are wrong to assert that Democrats keep oil companies from building refineries because of onerous permitting. It is simple economics and to think otherwise is naive or political rhetoric. The idea that oil companies wouldn't or couldn't build refineries here because of regulations is balderdash. They have no problem expanding, and renovating century old refineries already in operation because the basics are already there to make it profitable to do so. New ones, not so much.

Oil companies have a choice of building refineries that don't pollute their own backyard and poison their own people and pay dearly to do so because our standard of living requires we actually pay decent wages.  Or of making use of cheap transportation (pipelines and tankers which you own and lease to other producers as well) to have the refining job done outside the borders at facilities you have financial interests in and could care less about their people and ecology. One costs you money and opens you up to litigation over Bhopal type catastrophes. Your own people, Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans and Independents will fight you if you try and build one near their city. The other method costs you less money and gives you access to global markets and lower tax rates in growing industrial countries with slave wages.

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions....

Balderdash?  Oil companies cannot simply pick a plot of land and start building.  For the two currently in planning/or construction stages, it's taken over seven years just to attempt to get an air permit for the one in Arizona.

An Arizona refinery company that spent seven years struggling for approval to build illustrates why the U.S. needs to change its rules for reviewing refineries, oil industry officials told U.S. senators Thursday.

Congress is considering bills designed to speed permit approval. Many lawmakers say the U.S. must expand its capacity to stay competitive and keep up with demand.

Industry officials told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the lengthy permitting process discourages companies from investing the time and money in refinery construction.

Case in point, they said, is the experience of Arizona Clean Fuels Yuma, which likely will build the first new refinery in the U.S. since 1976.

Arizona Clean Fuels first began working on a permit for a large refinery near Mobile in 1998.

But in 2003, as it was ending its work on the permit application, the state determined Mobile was part of the area around Phoenix out of compliance with standards for ozone, the smog-forming pollutant.

The company agreed to move to Yuma, and the final permit was issued in April 2005 – seven years after the company first began its work.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2006/07/14/19103-arizona-refinery-permit-took-seven-years-senate-told/

The Arizona project malingered long enough that they finally had to put the project on the back burner due to the economic collapse in '07/'08 which made additional financing of the project impossible.

The Hyperion refinery project in South Dakota has been in planning and permitting for six to seven years now.  There's no shortage of groups who step in to hinder the process:

Last month, Hughes County Circuit Judge Mark Barnett upheld an air-quality permit for the proposed Hyperion refinery in Union County over the objection of three groups that had sued to vacate it.

Dallas-based Hyperion Resources now has until March of next year to start building the refinery, which would process 400,000 barrels per day of heavy Canadian crude into fuel.

The project has been tied up in legal wrangling for years — the company submitted its initial air-quality application in 2007 — with opponents arguing that the pollution the refinery would bring to the area isn't worth the promised jobs and energy security.

More broadly, opposition to Hyperion is part of a broader campaign by environmental groups to slow the development of the Canadian tar sands, where the extraction process is considered more ecologically destructive than conventional crude drilling.

Here's a look at what's next for the Hyperion Energy Center, whose $10 billion price tag has "not materially" changed since the estimate was made in 2006, company spokesman Eric Williams said in an email.

■ The opponents — Save Union County, the Sierra Club and Citizens Opposed to Oil Pollution — can appeal Barnett's decision to the South Dakota Supreme Court. Hyperion is preparing for an appeal, Williams said.

Depending on the type of the appeal, the high court could have discretion over whether to even hear the case, said Greg Sattizahn, counsel to the Unified Judicial System.

Ed Cable of Save Union County, spokesman for the opposition, said the groups would announce next week whether they will appeal.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20120305/NEWS/303050002/Appeal-more-permits-ahead-Hyperion-refinery

Best guess from where I sit in the industry and others I deal with, is it's easily a 10-12 year process from start of planning to having an operational refinery, with much of that time spent on dealing with the various permits and regulations.  

It's a very difficult process to even permit asphalt storage facilities.  It took one of my clients in Cheyenne right at a year to obtain the air permits for an asphalt terminal.  There is no refining capacity whatsoever on site.  It is an off-load, storage, and load-out plant- a tank farm, if you will.  They simply operate a 20 million BTU gas-fired steam boiler and/or a couple of similar sized thermal oil heaters to keep the asphalt warm enough to flow from rail cars to storage tanks and back out to trucks or other rail cars.  

I agree somewhat that Democrats are not soley to blame.  It's the run-away bureaucracy at the EPA which also trickles down to state DEQ's that has created onerous regulations which help stifle development and have escalated construction costs on everything from refineries down to microbreweries and mom & pop dry cleaning operations.  Democrats tend to support more enviro-friendly legislation and tend to more loudly promote environmental legislation, that's where the ire comes in.

[AquaMan]

You bolster my comments. It isn't any one group, its Americans in general who don't want oil related industry near them. Even people in the oil industry are skeptical of the processes and procedures being used to bring product to market. BP did more damage than just ecological. Fracking is scaring people too. The industry looks for scapegoats rather than leaders who tell them the truth, like Boone Pickens. As a result, politicians of all stripes use them like escorts. Good looking, voluptuous and good to be seen with and satisfying, but nothing you take home to the rest of the family.

The impatience of a generation raised on the expectation of speedy, low cost, high technology solutions means that people are surprised and frustrated that it takes 10 years to permit and build a refinery with most of that time being in the permitting and protection of surrounding areas. In the time frame of a mature business like oil, that is the blink of an eye. Had each of the largest refiners started building a refinery in the late 80's or 2002 when they had their Texas, oil family, republican president in office or in the 90's when republicans dominated Congress, we would currently be the major refiner in the world and other countries would be sending their product to our shores for refining instead of through a pipeline headed off to other countries refineries.

Truth is we didn't want that to happen because we, like Canadians, simply don't see ourselves as refiners. That is the heavy lifting we prefer others to do.

[Conan71]

How did I bolster your comment that all oil refineries had to do was plunk down the cash and build a refinery without onerous regulations?

[AquaMan]

How did I bolster your comment that all oil refineries had to do was plunk down the cash and build a refinery without onerous regulations?

I didn't make that comment. You must have confused me with another post.

What the oil companies consider onerous regulation is perceived by the public as pragmatic consumer protection. The time period is not really that long. It takes 5 years for a company to do its own planning and another 2-4 years to build. When you add in the period of time to make sure the public is protected, a decade doesn't seem so bad. Much of this planning is happening concurrently. I watched the expansion by Holley proceed rather quickly and it still took a good 4 years to be accomplished. When the economics are right we'll build refineries from scratch. I don't think for a moment that political hatred of Democrats will stop that. Heiro does and has his links to back him up. Fine.

I appreciate you reading and responding to my posts. I don't want to sound confrontative. I spent a few years working for a large oil company and found them to be whiny, greedy, and willing to deceive. IOW, what makes America great! And, the benefits were awesome.

[heironymouspasparagus]

How did I bolster your comment that all oil refineries had to do was plunk down the cash and build a refinery without onerous regulations?

Nobody in this stream of consciousness said that.

I made a statement that there is nothing stopping them from getting started right now.  Today.  Earlier this morning was possible.  They are the only thing stopping them.

Could have happened last year.  Or 5 years ago.  Or 30 years ago.


As for big oil hating Dems...well, not specifically Dems, they just want to roll over anyone who disagrees with the idea of letting them run loose and free with no oversight whatsoever - and in a very non-partisan way.  In today's world that could show some alignment along party lines, since so many of the extremist right actually want to allow that "loose and free" activity.  The people who don't want that are way more than just Dems, though.

[Teatownclown]

AIPAC and the righties want Obama out at the behest of Beni Nutenyahoo....

People, let's not get fooled again!

Robert Gates: Attacking Iran Would Be A 'Catastrophe'
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/03/22/449740/robert-gates-attacking-iran-would-be-a-catastrophe/
Iran hawks and the GOP presidential candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have been slow to acknowledge the inherent dangers of U.S. and/or Israeli military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities while members of President Obama's cabinet have made the case that sanctions and diplomatic pressure are the best strategy for deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.
But in remarks delivered last week at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — himself a Republican — delivered a stern warning to those who push for the "military option" against Iran.
"If you think the war in Iraq was hard, an attack on Iran would, in my opinion, be a catastrophe," said Gates, as reported by the Jewish Exponent. Gates, who served as Defense Secretary in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, warned that Iran's nuclear facilities would be difficult to destroy and an attack would lead Iranians to "rally behind their mullahs."
Gates' comments concurred with U.S., Israeli and IAEA intelligence findings on Iran's nuclear program. "I have long been convinced that Iran is determined to develop a nuclear-weapons capability," said the former Defense Secretary. Indeed, the intelligence reports agree that Iran is moving towards a nuclear weapons capability but that Tehran has not yet made a decision about whether to acquire nuclear weapons.
Yesterday, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) warned that Iran may have "hundreds" of Hezbollah agents in the U.S. but Gates, in his remarks last week, largely disregarded the possibility of an Iranian retaliation within the U.S. if the U.S. or Israel launch a military strike on nuclear sites in Iran. "[T]he Iranian ability to attack us militarily here at home is virtually non-existent for now," said Gates.
But retaliatory escalation from such a strike would still have a devastating impact on the U.S. and its regional allies. "[Iranian] capacity to wage a series of terror attacks across the Middle East aimed at us and our friends, and dramatically worsen the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere is hard to overestimate," Gates said.
The Obama administration has ruled out a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran but, in views concurrent with those expressed by Gates, has emphasized that a diplomatic solution is "the best and most permanent way" to relieve mounting tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

The alliance between the extremists here and those in Israel appears to be more dangerous than mutual deterence...

[Gaspar]

People, let's not get fooled again!

It must get old.