Just a sample of things to come...

ConCit · Coal Joined: May 06, 2004 Posts: 17

I just submitted this news story but wanted to comment. Notice that this is Shell Oil... the same Royal Dutch Shell that's had to reduce their reserves estimates 4 times this year. Refineries have more than a few chemical engineers on hand; shouldn't one of them test the oil they receive once in awhile to see if it's OK?My BS Detector swung wildly to the high side of the scale when I first heard this story on CBS News tonight. Someone KNEW they were selling sour crude for gas refining. And on the broadcast news - the article linked above doesn't repeat it - the reporter said that high-sulfur gas won't hurt your car or the environment, just your gas gauge. Go on, pull the other one.

But this reminded me of that extra 800Kbpd the Saudis have been going on about for the last week. From everything I've read, the only spare capacity they have any more is in high-sulfur crude - good for heating oil but not much else without lots of extra processing to remove the sulfur. But if that's all the extra availabe, I expect to see more of the tainted fuel to make it's way out more and more often.

Ardalla · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 4:52 pm Post subject:

Seems like I remember a few days ago a media report on the storage capcacity the Saudis have. When I read that story you mention I immediately inferred they would be shipping from that storage ... as long as it lasts. Seems like I remember it being 100 mb. That seems awfully large though.

notacornucopian · Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 10:35 am Post subject:

I am only speculating as to the posssible quality connection, but recently when changing the oil on our family's two vehicles ( 1 late model Volvo and an older Toyota ), I noticed that both vehicles began burning a significant amount of oil over the next 1000 kms of use. I used the same brand of oil I have used for years ( Quaker State ) and have never experienced a batch of poor quality oil. I decided to change the oil again and use a different brand ( Castrol ) to see if that would make any difference. It did. Neither vehicle is using oil at anywhere near the same rate. Anyone have an idea on what the connection may be ( high sulphur content in the crude, etc. ) ?

smiley · Fission Joined: Apr 16, 2004 Posts: 2105 Location: Europe

Indeed it seems that the saudi's are pumping more and more high sulfur (sour) crude which is unsuitable for most of the US refineries. However I doubt that is the cause for the mishap at Motiva since they shouldn't have a lot of sour crude in their intake.

What happened at Motiva is a mystery to me. It seems that a couple of things went wrong. Normally they should check the quality of the fuel before it leaves the plant, which they apparently didn't.

If you start corroding fuel sensors in cars the sulfur content must be way off, not just a few percent. Either they have accidently blended the fuel with some high sulfur stuff (eg heating oil), but that you would notice at the moment you started your car at the gas station. Or something went awry with the catalytic sulfur conversion at the refinery, which also should have been noticed.

Whatever the reaon I think it is not a coincidence that this happens to Shell. Last week their Mars pipeline burst and now this. All oil companies are under huge pressure at the moment. But It wouldn't surprise me that Shell is really pushing things to the limit in order to please the investors after the embarrasment a few months back.

I can imagine that they are cutting corners here and there on maintenance, quality control etc. That's when these things happen.

AA · Tar Sands Joined: May 15, 2004 Posts: 46

I believe they ran out of fuel, because of their pipeline bursting. But they needed a cover story so as not to send the oil markets into a panic.

It sounded like a very weak and suspicous story to me, but it would be enough to satisfy customer and investor suspicions. As in our current society very few challenge the integrity of the government or major corporations.

Can you imagine how high oil price would go if Shell anounced to people in that area that they ran out of oil? Now wonder why they would lie about it?

Expect tons more lying in the years ahead, to cover for things. Such as power outages, fuel supplies out like this, banks unable to give withdrawls.

In the banks case they will likely announce that a computer hacker has disabled much of the system. Or they will announce that there was just a 'failure' in the bank's software.

They will never admit what the real crisis is, because that would lead to a much much greater crisis. Amazingly many soviet citizens didn't know their country was collapsing until the very last days of the soviet union. Each time things like banks out of money happened the soviets had clever and believable excuses for why.

Expect the identical thing here, and I believe we already have seen the lying on multiple occasions. Which of course will never be admitted. America is going down imo and I'm not sure they can stabilize it.

TheSupplyGuy · Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 8:07 pm Post subject: I don't know what to think

I don't know what to believe. Maybe they ran out, maybe some guy slacked off that week and didn't check the gas? Who knows(other than Shell of course)?
_________________
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.-Thoreau
Peak Oil

AA · Tar Sands Joined: May 15, 2004 Posts: 46

k_semler · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 4:05 am Post subject: Re: I don't know what to think