Interesting statistic from the Energy Information Agency
Remember this posting?: On the Subject of ANWR 5/8/2008 and of course: 10 Points on why drilling in ANWR won't save us. from 6/25/2008.
Well I was wikispelunking and ended up back on the EIA site again... I wasn't actually looking for this information but I was very surprised by what I found. It's interesting having the historical data at my fingertips to do a comparisson. Check this out...
June of 2008 we were using 20,547,945 barrels of oil a day and, producing 9, 373,945 barrels ourselves, refining 17,443,392 barrels of it ourselves, importing 11,174,000 barrels and spending $4.05 a gallon on gas.
EIA - Petroleum Basic Data: Date Last Updated/Reviewed: February 2009U.S. Crude Oil Production 5,064,000 barrels/day
U.S. Net Petroleum Imports 12,036,000 barrels/day
Disposition Related
U.S. Petroleum Consumption 20,680,000 barrels/day
U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption 9,286,000 barrels/day (390 million gallons/day)
Share of US Oil Consumption for Transportation 70%
U.S. Total Petroleum Exports 1,433,000 barrels/day
So as of two months ago, we are actually using 20,680,000 barrels a day, producing 5,064,000 barrels a day, refining ?? barrels of it ourselves and importing 12,035,000 barrels a day and right now, gas is hovering at about $2.01 a gallon even though we're exporting 1,433,000 barrels a day.
The next refinery capacity report is due out in June, so I have no up to date information on the current refinery capacity of the US, but I doubt it's changed all that much. I had to dig around to find the US Oil Exports for 2008 but they were at 1.7 million barrels a day.
So let me get this straight. We're producing, importing and using MORE oil and we're exporting slightly less, yet the cost of our gasoline is half of what it was a little under a year ago. Hell, just two months ago it was around $1.80 and in November of last year it was hovering at around $1.45-$1.50. Here's a pretty good graph showing this progression: gasbuddy.com retail price chart.
So basically all we had to do to reduce the price of gasoline temporarilly is hold an election and boot the two Oil men that 51 million of our countrymen elected out of office.
Funny how that works.
What this seems to say to me just as it said in 2008 when I brought up speculation, is that the actual supply of oil in the US has very little to do with the cost of gas. But it also says to me that the actual demand for oil has nothing to do with it either. As noted, we're using MORE of it now than we were in June of last year when I wrote my original post. The numbers have moved around a little bit, yes, but they haven't changed enough to account for the price of gasoline more than halving between June and November of 2008.
So what changed? It sure as hell wasn't the measly 300,000 barrels a day Bush went begging on his hands and knees to OPEC for. In this country we use 14,361 barrels every minute (20,680,000/1440=14361) so we burn through Bush's grovelling oil 21 minutes after midnight each morning.
The difference seems to be, to me a layman with access to google and the ability to do basic math, that the speculators who were artificially inflating the price of our gasoline figured the jig was up because the tide of public oppinion had turned against them in a tsunami wave. I imagine once people started noticing the speculation connection those people doing it were invisioning angry mobs with torches and pitchforks and thus started to pull their money out of the volitile black gold. But the laws put in place by Phil Gramm during the Clinton administration have not been amended or repealed. It should be noted that the 9 million or so people who were effectively knocked out of the economy between June of last year and April of this year by Bush's recession probably helped this to some extent by reducing overall demand. With those 9 million people still able to afford things like gasoline and cars demand probably would have been higher though I doubt it would have been significantly higher.
Now, I do note that gas is starting to creep back up again. So I guess the speculators are starting to find their balls again. So once again it's time to call upon your representatives, now that they're all drunk on their 2008 and 2006 changes of power to REMOVE THE SPECULATION LOOPHOLE IN ENERGY. It is imperative that this is done BEFORE we start switching to alternative energies. Because if we don't then the same assholes who fucked California with a cactus over electricity and fucked -the whole world- over gasoline will be fucking us for Wind and Solar power very shortly.
Well I was wikispelunking and ended up back on the EIA site again... I wasn't actually looking for this information but I was very surprised by what I found. It's interesting having the historical data at my fingertips to do a comparisson. Check this out...
June of 2008 we were using 20,547,945 barrels of oil a day and, producing 9, 373,945 barrels ourselves, refining 17,443,392 barrels of it ourselves, importing 11,174,000 barrels and spending $4.05 a gallon on gas.
EIA - Petroleum Basic Data: Date Last Updated/Reviewed: February 2009U.S. Crude Oil Production 5,064,000 barrels/day
U.S. Net Petroleum Imports 12,036,000 barrels/day
Disposition Related
U.S. Petroleum Consumption 20,680,000 barrels/day
U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption 9,286,000 barrels/day (390 million gallons/day)
Share of US Oil Consumption for Transportation 70%
U.S. Total Petroleum Exports 1,433,000 barrels/day
So as of two months ago, we are actually using 20,680,000 barrels a day, producing 5,064,000 barrels a day, refining ?? barrels of it ourselves and importing 12,035,000 barrels a day and right now, gas is hovering at about $2.01 a gallon even though we're exporting 1,433,000 barrels a day.
The next refinery capacity report is due out in June, so I have no up to date information on the current refinery capacity of the US, but I doubt it's changed all that much. I had to dig around to find the US Oil Exports for 2008 but they were at 1.7 million barrels a day.
So let me get this straight. We're producing, importing and using MORE oil and we're exporting slightly less, yet the cost of our gasoline is half of what it was a little under a year ago. Hell, just two months ago it was around $1.80 and in November of last year it was hovering at around $1.45-$1.50. Here's a pretty good graph showing this progression: gasbuddy.com retail price chart.
So basically all we had to do to reduce the price of gasoline temporarilly is hold an election and boot the two Oil men that 51 million of our countrymen elected out of office.
Funny how that works.
What this seems to say to me just as it said in 2008 when I brought up speculation, is that the actual supply of oil in the US has very little to do with the cost of gas. But it also says to me that the actual demand for oil has nothing to do with it either. As noted, we're using MORE of it now than we were in June of last year when I wrote my original post. The numbers have moved around a little bit, yes, but they haven't changed enough to account for the price of gasoline more than halving between June and November of 2008.
So what changed? It sure as hell wasn't the measly 300,000 barrels a day Bush went begging on his hands and knees to OPEC for. In this country we use 14,361 barrels every minute (20,680,000/1440=14361) so we burn through Bush's grovelling oil 21 minutes after midnight each morning.
The difference seems to be, to me a layman with access to google and the ability to do basic math, that the speculators who were artificially inflating the price of our gasoline figured the jig was up because the tide of public oppinion had turned against them in a tsunami wave. I imagine once people started noticing the speculation connection those people doing it were invisioning angry mobs with torches and pitchforks and thus started to pull their money out of the volitile black gold. But the laws put in place by Phil Gramm during the Clinton administration have not been amended or repealed. It should be noted that the 9 million or so people who were effectively knocked out of the economy between June of last year and April of this year by Bush's recession probably helped this to some extent by reducing overall demand. With those 9 million people still able to afford things like gasoline and cars demand probably would have been higher though I doubt it would have been significantly higher.
Now, I do note that gas is starting to creep back up again. So I guess the speculators are starting to find their balls again. So once again it's time to call upon your representatives, now that they're all drunk on their 2008 and 2006 changes of power to REMOVE THE SPECULATION LOOPHOLE IN ENERGY. It is imperative that this is done BEFORE we start switching to alternative energies. Because if we don't then the same assholes who fucked California with a cactus over electricity and fucked -the whole world- over gasoline will be fucking us for Wind and Solar power very shortly.