Get Ready for Higher Gas Prices
An oil refinery in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, will shut down by mid-February. It is owned by Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).
Losses at Hovensa . . . have totaled $1.3 billion over the past three years and were projected to continue due to reduced demand caused by the global economic slowdown and increased refining capacity in emerging markets, said Brian K. Lever, president and chief operating officer of Hovensa LLC.
There are various other causes for the shutdown and this may be among them:
In January, Hovensa entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department in which the company agreed to invest $700 million on pollution controls after a series of chemical releases affected people living downwind from the refinery. Hovensa also agreed to pay a $5.4 million penalty for violating the Clean Air Act.
Under current market conditions and having experienced substantial losses during the past three years, investing an amount equal to 53.85 percent of those losses as required by the EPA could be quite burdensome.
Closure of the St. Croix refinery may well effect U.S. domestic gasoline prices adversely, particularly on the East Coast:
[T]he coming loss of gasoline supply shocked markets for gasoline futures, which are likely to be soon reflected at the pump. Gasoline for February delivery rose 5.41 cents to $2.8254 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, settling at the highest point since Sept. 8.
In St. Croix, the refinery employs about 1,200 people in addition to about 900 contractors. In 2010, the population of the island was 50,601, so the loss of about 2,100 jobs will have a substantial direct economic impact plus a significant multiplier effect. Food stamps and other welfare benefits are available there and the U.S. federal government contributes. There will also be significant long-term impacts on the tax revenues of the U.S. Virgin Islands, reducing them by at least $60 million per year through diminished real property taxes and employee income taxes.
Thank goodness that Obama is such a terribly idiotic organizer of economies [apparently much different than communities] that he doesn’t even know how to prop up edifices to save his presidency. If gas prices shoot up and the economy suffers from it, our nominee should skate right in…
exactly, which is why i dont believe gas will go up too high
maybe it will go up a bit in the spring and early summer since their is a built in excuse for higher gas prices this time of year but come november they might even be significantly lower than they are now
lower gas prices (flooding the market with our strategic reserves)
a lower albeit fudged unemployment rate (rate can only go down when the denominator continues to shrink as people who quit looking for work are no longer counted)
and modest/significant dow jones gains (the result of pure manipulation)
all are at the top of priorities for obamanation
The problem as outlined by the writer isn’t getting crude oil – its getting it refined. Opening the spigot on strategic reserves do nothing – the bottleneck (price increases) are at the refinery. A few electric generating plants and ocean going ships are about the only thing that can burn unrefined crude oil.
I would suggest that if gas prices start to increase Obama will get on his white charger and gallop over to the NYT and WaPo and announce that he is turning on the lights at a previously closed refinery in St. Croix that will avoid this crisis.
He will then announce that the facility had been closed by greedy republicans and big oil in an effort to manipulate the price of gas for their personal gain.
There are now maybe a 100 people who know the St Croix plant may close because of the EPA, etc. The average schlubb has no idea and will buy into whatever O tells them. The rebuttal from big oil and the GOP wil appear 15 days later on page 53 on a late Friday edition and it will be a left hand page at that.
There is so much stuff like this going on in every Fed department and at all levels of this administration it is impossible to know the scope of the damage being done by Obama and friends that we simply don’t know about.
Update,This Just In 22 Jan 2012 2:36 EDT:
Letter to the editor local Sunday paper news reader Quote:
“Gas prices may hit record high n ’12″ Big business manipulates prices…..and need to be held accountable for their actions which speak louder than words. When supply is up prices should drop….. For the first time in history U.S. is exporting oil….why are prices going to climb?…..
UUhhhh let me guess, St.Croix? Oh, I forgot he doesn’t know about the EPA and the other points brought to our attentin today by Mr. Miller. Thanks Dan for making my day, but not this guy in the local paper as he didn’t read your article, but rather one from our always on the spot AP wire service which we know only prints the “TRUTH”.
why don’t all the libs use public transport to get to work so we can solve the global warming hoax AND bring down the demand for gasoline?
Double edged sword, there.
When stacking up the cost of cutting Venezuela out of X amount of oil exports and revenue, against the U.S. cost of a few hundred on welfare, relocation for employment, absorption into other/government employment, and loss of local tax revenue, the bottom line shows a net positive for the U.S. Not a difficult decision.
Besides; The truth is, the lawyers caused the demise of this facility and employment through their extended litigation.
Knowing how inept Obama is at administering anything of commerce, it looks like he is involved in this on a personal basis. And everybody knows the Obama Guard Dog Media will employ such a convoluted story of this event, that it will appeal to his pitiful struggle of him against the mean old mega-rich corporations. (yawn).
Folks, are you miserable enough yet? If high umemployment and high gas prices do not lead you conclude that we need another president, then nothing will convince you. I say, onward and upward to the gas prices. Its the “cost” that we’re going to have to bear to get rid of OBummer and his disasterous policies.
Oil trade groups: Drilling deregulation could create 190,000 full time jobs Published: 12:04 AM 07/12/2011| Updated: 2:34 AM 07/12/2011
http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/12/oil-trade-groups-drilling-deregulation-could-create-190000-jobs/
Gasoline Taxes Vs. Exxon Profit, Per Gallon
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2011/04/27/gasoline-taxes-vs-exxon-profit-per-gallon/
Who takes in more money?
Check the credentials of the self-styled “environmentalists.” I taught some students in an “Environmental Studies” program, and they learned only how to engage in political activity. They learned no biology, or science in their program.
Don’t worry.
Gasoline prices are going to be much lower by Hovember. There is absolutely now way our benevolent government is going to let gas prices interfere with a fair election. Capitalism, marxist-style, will work its magic.
Maybe they’ll just outlaw personal vehicles?
How? Nobody believes he’ll let more supply come online.
How?
Who did the Saudis vote for in 2008?
Have to agree. The numbers will magically realign by November. Near-term: Gas may go up, but by Sept it will mysteriously come down. Unemployment may hold steady or creep up, but it too will somehow fall to (at-near-below) 8%. Debt may rise, but suddenly a new analysis will reveal it’s less horrific than we’d been led to believe. And so on …
Welcome to Obama’s Magic Kingdom.
I don’t think that Obama cares about the price of gas. He firmly believes in the Stalin dictum that, “It doesn’t matter who votes for you, it only matters who counts the votes”. Worked in Iran last Presidential election, and Barry really really likes the Iranians.
Enlightening.
No drilling permits in the Gulf
Estimated 60,000 jobs lost
No drilling off the west coast
Keystone pipeline blocked – win for China
Brazil awards oil to China after Obama subsidizes
National oil reserve already emptied
EPA crushing coal plants in Texas and Pennsylvania
Democrats villafy Big Oil and award billions for wind and solar that is not anywhere near profitable
THIS IS THE ENERGY POLICY OF THE OBLAMA ADMINISTRATION
It may be an election cycle but the EPA (and Keystone XL pipeline cancellation) dials were turned too far and too many big wheels are in motion to articificially reduce the supply side. Short of higher unemployment and further economic contraction they may not be able to readjust these price upward moves in time for the election. Blaming big oil and Bush may be the only out.
Look for Obama to run against Bush – and with Bush. You might even see that happen in the same speech – look for it to happen. He’ll rail against big oil (Bush’s fault) out one side of his mouth – and claim how he’s kept Bush’s policies alive in places like the Patriot Act and keeping Gitmo open and not prosecuting terrorists in US Courts. It takes a masterful liar (and a compliant press) to pull it off. Will the America people notice? I hope so – but as Winston Churchill once said “the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter…” He was so right.
I think the goal here is to preserve America’s environment so that China will have a wilderness park after our self-suicide ends our society. The greenies may be destroying our economy, but at least they are making sure the new economic powers will have places to go camping.
This Administration couldn’t care less about jobs:
http://www.kxly.com/news/30186807/detail.html Oh yeah,and huge fines for a small business can also be the kiss of death for some of them:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_baaeb900-2d5c-5934-b6d7-62a7c47d5365.html
The Instapundit link for this said: ‘A clean and healthy environment is good, but there are limits to how closely we can approach what some see as perfection.’ And what is perfection? The Virgin Island Daily News said: ‘As HOVENSA burned the heavy oil in its ground-flare system — an earthen dike to contain and burn the oil — a thick and dark plume of black smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air and carried oil droplets, which fell on some residential areas … Estates Profit, Clifton Hill and Enfield Green all were affected by the oil precipitation, and HOVENSA advised residents there not to drink their cistern water. The V.I. Department of Planning and Natural Resources told residents and businesses to disconnect their downspouts from their cisterns as a precaution.’
WTF?? Having oil droplets not fall on your head and be able to drink non-contaminated water counts as perfection these days? To all the nitwits talking about Obama being a Marxist, why don’t YOU give your kids a bath in your old engine oil, and give them a drink of water spiked with benzene. We should all reduce our life expectancy by five years so you one-percenters can drive around with 2 cent-per-gallon cheaper gas? You guys are the real death panels in this country.
And should that sort of misfeasance or accident require the expenditure of $700,000,000 to prevent a recurrence? Might that be overkill? As noted in the last paragraph of the article,
Some environmental regulations are good and reasonable. However, construction of modern refineries, energy independence and non-reliance on hostile nations for our oil supplies are also good and reasonable. Where environmental concerns intersect with those concerns, we seem to give undue weight to environmental concerns. That seems unwise. If, as some on the left complain (erroneously, in my view), we went to war to steal oil from an hostile country and in consequence killed and were killed, wouldn’t it be better if there were no need to do that sort of thing again?
It’s appalling to keep buying from Chavez and A’jad and financing their insanity.
Ill as he is (having reportedly refused more intense chemotherapy so he could continue his role as bombastic moron in chief) El Presidente Chavez may not make it to October 2012 re-election.
Calgary Sun: Keystone cop-out
The whole ‘oil droplets raining down’ disaster that prompted the $700,000,000.00 straw that broke the camel’s back is way overstated at best…Mostly by the largely transplanted well-to-do ‘hippy’ fools who tag team their BS anti-progress agitprop in literal collusion with their comrades in various departments of local and federal government. They are thick as locusts down here.
I’ve lived on St. Croix for 43 years, from the dirt road and no Hess Oil days, and the closing of the refinery here is being likened to when hurricane Hugo leveled the island in 1989…Only without the influx of FEMA money, Insurance money, rebuilding work, and of course HOVENSA’s help in our community.
In other words, it’s a REAL cataclysm that will effect every aspect of every person’s lives on St. Croix – whether they worked in the refinery or not. (I don’t work there BTW).
Whether it’s keeping the lights on (43 cents KWH) in their homes, gassing up their cars, renting or selling properties, funding their non-profit, affording to AC their businesses, feeding their families…Everything.
I cannot even begin to describe the depths of contempt with which I hold lovey-dovey green fascists and the Orwellian .gov bureaucrats who are responsible for this man-caused disaster. F you all!
Just wait ’till you really get to feel the full weight of their boots America.
Should there ever be an expat deficiency in St. Croix, you are welcome to as many as you would like from the Republic of Panama. Here in western Panama, we have a surplus.
I don’t much care for foreigners resident in the U.S. meddling in our affairs there, and there is an unfortunate tendency when we become expats to bring with us notions best left behind.
Amen.
I wish they’d all just shove off to their spiritual home…Cuba….Circa 1965.
We do a fine enough job of putting ourselves in the position to beg for handouts without them.
In the original post, “effect” should be “affect.”
This is Ron Paul’s famous Predictions speech from April 24, 2002. This is the original video compiling recent images and video to give his speech a chilling effect.
“I have no timetable for these predictions, but just in case, keep them around and look at them in 5-10 years. Let’s hope and pray that I’m wrong on all accounts. If so, I will be very pleased. ” Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDisyWkIBM&feature=player_embedded
“OIl droplets raining down”…is that sort of like “Oil droplets raining up” from B-P’s gusher in the Gulf of Mexico? I bet if B-p was substituted for Chavez, there wouldn’t be a peep from any of the right wing loonies, unless I’m wrong!
As usual, there is not enough technical information to evaluate the pollution effects in this refinery, but the trend is certain. As 15. monkeyfan states, there will be enormous suffering in St. Croix due to lost employment. I can contribute that Venezuela has vast reserves of a uniquely crappy crude oil. It is high in sulfur, difficult to extract, handle and very difficult to refine. Most importantly, it is under the thumb of a killer.
I stand in awe of the technical experts who have given their careers to energy, but despair that their contribution is worthless in today’s world. The competitive price of hydrocarbons, or any energy field (and the livelihood of those who work in technology) are wholly controlled by dictators, oligopolies, regulators and lawyers who work for powerful ideologues.
The technical workers can get crude to a US refinery for circa $35 barrel. Every thing above that is a rip off. Today the largest cost factor is fear: the green back will become worthless paper. People prefer to own a mobile non rusting thing: oil, gold, or diamonds, than a dollar bill. The vast majority of people who buy oil, have no use for it. They are speculators, who make fortunes as it’s price goes up or down, crazily gyrates.
As the joke goes, if we took all the controllers, put them in a tanker, sailed into the deep and sank the ship, we could have $2/gal gas, (or lower) as Congresslady Michele Bachmann tossed out. And a pretty President.
Elections have consequences. $5 gas in one.
To Obama, high gas prices are not an unintended side effect, they are a goal. The only unintended part is he does not want them to skyrocket until after the election. Of course he can always blame any gas price hike on “evil speculators”.
Actually, we are talking about a specific oil refinery here not the entire oil industry. Profit margins at the gasoline refinery level are actually pretty slim. In fact, when the price of the barrel of oil goes up sharply the refiners will often operate at a loss. Oil prices do not statically correlate to gasoline prices. There was another refiner that closed down in south Texas not too long ago after months of running in the red. Being a gasoline producer isn’t just the automatic road to riches. There are plenty of obstacles to keeping the operation running. The EPA ultimately adds another obstacle to the long list. And it is a total straw man to attack this notion that people don’t want clean air, healthy water, and protection of their property. Everybody appreciates a reasonable level of regulation to meet these goals. But that’s a far cry from the licensing and permit games that they play in court to hold up increased oil production and additional job creation.
Gosh! How dare the EPA burden those poor oil companies with the trouble of minimizing their pollution outputs! After all, clean air isn’t NEARLY as important as their (greedy oil execs) self-proclaimed right to make ridiculous profits, regardless of the secondary effects of their polluting policies. Why are gas prices so high? In one word, GREED! From OPEC to EXXON MOBIL and all those other BIG OIL losers, GREED rules the day. Get your heads out of that smelly hole, conservatives.
2.Total quantity: 9.600.000 MT (+ / – 5%). CIF CHINA PORTS, immediately after
We need oil for China.
superbezg@yhoo.com
GAS OILS,
A.
The buyer will never pay anything on the territory of the Russian Fderatsii – NOT for registration, not forcertification of the product ….
Two.
Bank letter of credit is not an ordinary revocable without peedavaemy filled –
in the form via MT700 or BCL
Three.
* BUYER issues POF via MT799 or BCL with full bank responsibility
to seller’s bank against partial POP
If you are satisfied mended option can send FCO
MAZUT MT 100 GOST 10585-75
800,000 MT per month. up
12x 800,000 MT – MT = 9,600,000 annual contract.
Target Price: GROSS USD420.00 / MT CIF ASWP
Target Price: NET USD 4000.00 / MT CIF ASWP
We finished contract on Fuel. CIF CHINA PORTS,