Thread: Oil, again
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  #20  
Old 09-08-2005, 05:47 AM
Cyrus Cyrus is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
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Default Enough oil

If the thesis of the article was that there is just not enough crude oil to go around, I disagree. Crude oil production is not the issue -- refining is. As the stats show, refineries are operating at close to full utilisation in 2004 and 2005. (Which, come to think of it, is amazing when you factor in the numerous shut-downd around the world, when refineries were closing down temporarily to upgrade their products' specifications.)

There has been a huge surge in demand, with Asia-Pacific (read: China) leading the way.

OPEC could double the daily production of crude oil tomorrow (a strictly theoretical argument) and the price of oil products would be affected only slightly.

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If annual [crude] oil production has a ceiling, then you don't want to build refineries that would bring annual oil refining capacity past that ceiling.

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The world is currently pumping out all the crude that the refineries need. But the refineries do not produce enough of what the world needs.
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