Light Sweet Crude Oil
is the preferred oil to refine for creating petroleum products, including gasoline. Light means something good about the specific gravity or something, while Sweet means low in sulfur. It was as low as $18.08 on 11 DEC 2001 and has topped out at $99.62 on 2 Jan 2008. But until a few years ago it remained fairly constantly between $30-$40. This all changed a few years ago, which translates into $3/gallon gas for most of us. Now, there has to be a certain amount of speculation here, since commodities don't grow 500% in six years on a regular basis. Another mitigating factor here will be the tar sands in Canada. Special, expensive refining techniques will be necessary to process this, but Canada is sitting on a gold mine. There is as much oil in Canada as there is in the middle east. It is just much more of a pain to make it useful.
In fact, this extremely heavy crude has made Canada the number one exportor of petroleum products to the United States despite political trouble that is slowing their production. For reference, the cost to extract tar sand is about $28/barrel, which years ago made it a dubious proposition. Today, though, tar sand operations are showing a much wider profit margin than the conventional operations.
In fact, this extremely heavy crude has made Canada the number one exportor of petroleum products to the United States despite political trouble that is slowing their production. For reference, the cost to extract tar sand is about $28/barrel, which years ago made it a dubious proposition. Today, though, tar sand operations are showing a much wider profit margin than the conventional operations.