Refinery shut down by strikes to cause large fuel shortage

[Admiral Valdemar]

Not even that. It's not economical to build or expand when you know you won't ever pay back the ever growing investment costs. Oil peaking does that.

I'd recommend filling up now, as I did today. This could get bad.

[Warsie]

If the right lesson was reaching people, a few little shocks might be a good thing in the long run if it gets more people to stop or lower their amount of driving, use public transportation, or really get people thinking about how oil's going to run out eventually and they'd really better start looking into something else. It can be done, and is happening here in Washington.

The Oil Peak is happening now, if this report is correct...
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/10 ... index.html

[Kanastrous]

"Oil could be left in the ground and we could move on to another fuel in the future, not because we're running out of oil but because, economically speaking, it is not worth extracting the oil," Drollas said.

Well, specifically what is the practical difference, between oil-that's-too-expensive-to-reach, and oil-that's-not-there-at-all?

Doesn't appear to me that there is much of one.

[Admiral Valdemar]

"Oil could be left in the ground and we could move on to another fuel in the future, not because we're running out of oil but because, economically speaking, it is not worth extracting the oil," Drollas said.

Well, specifically what is the practical difference, between oil-that's-too-expensive-to-reach, and oil-that's-not-there-at-all?

Doesn't appear to me that there is much of one.

There isn't, thought the former is classed as "peak oil lite" because it's not technically a geological peak, but has the same effects. Not sending out exports or retaining oil that is too pricey or has poor EROEI ratios is as good as the scenario Hubbert proposed.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It has just been confirmed on Reuters that the Forties field will be shutdown, so the speculation that BP may redirect the gas and oil to Hound Point seems false.

This means 70 million cubic metres of gas is going to be shut out. That's 25% of UK daily usage, therefore, given a lack of storage capacity thanks to winter drawdowns, we may get national rolling blackouts he the industry interruptible contracts don't allow home demand to carry on as normal.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Just heard that Edinburgh will have no fuel for its buses, and trains will be affected too by Sunday night. This is a good move, because what we need right now is more people in cars driving around using fuel public transport and the emergency services could use.

Truly a great contingency plan ahead.

[Dartzap]

Just heard that Edinburgh will have no fuel for its buses, and trains will be affected too by Sunday night. This is a good move, because what we need right now is more people in cars driving around using fuel public transport and the emergency services could use.

Truly a great contingency plan ahead.

That was later found to be bollocks apperently

At lunchtime on Thursday, Edinburgh-based Lothian Buses announced that it did not expect to be able to run any services after Sunday evening because BP was prioritising deliveries to petrol stations instead.

But a short time later, the Scottish Government issued a statement saying there had been a "misunderstanding" and the bus company would receive diesel from BP.

Lothian Buses then gave reassurances that its fleet would be fuelled and services would run as normal.

Your cynicism should be kept in check atleast for a short time whilst you look to back such comments up

[Admiral Valdemar]

There was a Reuters report stating as such. I can't exactly go and interrogate Lothian myself now, can I?

[Dartzap]

There was a Reuters report stating as such. I can't exactly go and interrogate Lothian myself now, can I?

We have Keeven to such things, he is a journalist, after all (sort of)

[Admiral Valdemar]

He demands payment. I'm not about to pay the likes of a Scotsman.

Even if half-Scots myself...

[Bedlam]

We got the busses stopping notice at work today, people were in the middle of writing reports on how to keep the business going on reduced staff when we got the retaction.

Don't effect me directly as I walk and don't even own a car but its certaly a scary thought.

[aerius]

It has just been confirmed on Reuters that the Forties field will be shutdown, so the speculation that BP may redirect the gas and oil to Hound Point seems false.

Forties going down tomorrow

BP's Forties Oil Pipeline to Shut on Refinery Closure (Update5)

By Alexander Kwiatkowski

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc said it will start shutting the Forties Pipeline System tomorrow, cutting about 40 percent of the U.K.'s oil production, because of the closure of Ineos Group Holdings Plc's Grangemouth refinery in Scotland.

``Preparations have begun for the shutdown of the Forties Pipeline System this weekend,'' BP spokeswoman Joanne McDonald said in a telephone interview today. ``There won't be any throughput through Forties from Saturday night.''

Crude oil and refined products prices have surged on the prospect of the pipeline closing, cutting U.K. oil supplies by as much as 40 percent. The Forties Pipeline System exports about 600,000 barrels a day from more than 50 fields in the North Sea which will be forced to close as well. Total production is about 700,000 barrels a day.

The shutdown `` has a profound impact on both crude and product balances,'' Thomas Stenvoll, an energy strategist at UBS AG in London, said in an e-mailed comment. ``It will reduce light-sweet crude from the North Sea market as refiners are returning from turnarounds.''

The Forties pipeline relies on steam and power provided by Ineos' refinery which is shutting down for safety reasons before a strike from April 27-28. Without the utilities from the refinery, the pipeline cannot operate, McDonald said.

BP will need to start closing the pipeline within 24 hours of the utilities being cut off, according to McDonald. With the refinery's full closure possible by tomorrow evening, BP could start shutting Forties today, she said. Should Ineos maintain supply to utilities, the pipeline wouldn't have to close.

Refinery Closure

The shut-down of the 200,000 barrel-a-day refinery and petrochemical plants is now complete, the company said in a statement today. Ineos said the trade union has refused to maintain power and steam supplies to Kinneil. Talks with unions earlier this week failed to avoid the two-day strike over pensions.

Oil from the Forties Pipeline System is pumped to crude stabilization and gas processing facilities at BP's Kinneil terminal situated next to the Grangemouth refinery. From there, some oil is shipped to the refinery to be processed into fuel and the rest goes to the Hound Point terminal for export or to storage facilities at Dalmeny.

The trade union, Unite, said the power plant which supplies energy to Kinneil will continue to operate ``at a safety only'' level, meaning it won't produce enough power for the terminal.

``We expect those utilities will cease to be available from some time on Saturday,'' BP's Macdonald said. It may take as much as 48 hours to restore production once the supply of utilities resumes, according to a statement on BP's Web site.

Forties Pipeline

The Forties Pipeline System has the capacity to transport more than 1 million barrels a day of oil, according to information on BP's Web site. The pipeline pumps about 700,000- barrels a day of crude while exports for the past six months were scheduled to average about 614,000 barrels a day, according to loading programs.

BP's ETAP, Andrew, Bruce, Rhum, Everest and Lomond fields, which supply crude to the pipeline, will stop production if the pipeline closes, McDonald said. A spokeswoman for Nexen Inc., the operator of the Buzzard field, was not available to comment on whether the field will shut. With production of around 200,000 barrels a day, Buzzard is the biggest field supplying the pipeline.

Conoco's Britannia

ConocoPhillips said its Britannia field, which pumps oil into the pipeline and gas to the St. Fergus Mobil sub-terminal, will be forced to close. Britannia is the U.K.'s largest gas field and produced about 12.7 million cubic meters a day of gas and 12,000 barrels a day of oil last year, according to the Web site of the U.K.'s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Apache Corp, which operates the Forties field, will continue operating until BP advises the company that it has to shut production, said Apache spokesman Bill Mintz in a telephone interview from Houston. The field, which accounts for all of Apache's North Sea output, produced an average 53,600 barrels a day in 2007. Two platforms at the field have been closed since April 17 for maintenance.

It may take at least a week to resume production from the fields once the pipeline opens again, according to Malcolm Webb, chief executive officer of industry body Oil & Gas UK.

The U.K. produced an average of 1.45 million barrels a day of oil in 2007 according to the U.K. government.

Forties Price

The price of Forties crude rose to the highest in more than a week relative to the Dated Brent benchmark today on concern the strike would cut production.

Forties cost 63 cents a barrel less than Dated Brent, compared with a discount of 70 cents a barrel yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's the smallest discount since April 16.

European gasoline traded above $1,000 a ton for a second day today after reaching a record $1,007 a ton yesterday.

Brent crude for June settlement rose as much as $3.22, or 2.8 percent, to a record $117.56 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange today.

Hoard away!

[Admiral Valdemar]

WTI hit $120.17 on the NYMEX briefly too.

[aerius]

Good. Maybe this will clear all those fucking SUVs off the roads and free up traffic flow a bit.

[Phantasee]

Peak Oil was on the front page of today's Edmonton Journal, along with a front page story about rising food prices. It was pretty awkward telling my dad about Peak Oil and how it's probably going to affect our trucking business.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, I text my mum the other day getting her to make sure my dad filled up, since my folks live in Lancashire which is the north-west of England. She text back saying to stop depressing her.

Yeah, not too looking to finally being exonerated on this. Not after the looks I got this time last year when I heavily researched it at home all day.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Peak Oil was on the front page of today's Edmonton Journal, along with a front page story about rising food prices. It was pretty awkward telling my dad about Peak Oil and how it's probably going to affect our trucking business.

Like the fact that you should be looking at selling the business as rapidly as possible and using the money to get into another field of business? If you've got a million or two in assets, you could probably buy a short line railroad somewhere in the United States or Canada.


P.S. One of my crazier schemes would be to get everyone on SD.net to go together, form a privately held company, and use our shared assets to build a shortline railroad. Those of us without other skills could then train to be the railroad employees, while the college-educated types just held the stock as about the most solid of investments you could currently make right now.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Or form a PMC. We could be like the A-Team.

[Simplicius]

Or form a PMC. We could be like the A-Team.

We would need a pretty damn big van for that.

[Kanastrous]

Or form a PMC. We could be like the A-Team.

We would need a pretty damn big van for that.

Too fuel-inefficient.

[Adrian Laguna]

We could merge the two ideas and form a PMC that travels via armoured train.