US oil inventories fall to 'precariously low' level as Iran war disrupts supply | Hacker News Reader

US oil inventories fall to 'precariously low' level as Iran war disrupts supply

ft.com

71 pointsmapping36529 comments

The fun part of this is the crack spread doesn't care about the relatively low price that crude is selling for. Refined petroleum is going for eye-watering prices, and will continue to do so for a very long time, even if peace breaks out tomorrow.

Also seems pretty doubtful that oil prices would drop even if the war ended, given that everyone is going to be scrambling to refill their reserves for a very long time. On top of that, a lot of wells have been capped, which is a destructive act, so it'll take years to repair the supply.

The real winners will be everyone who destroyed their own oil demand. I went out and bought an EV in May to replace an ICE vehicle, and the other car in the household hasn't burned through a full tank in the months since. They may have killed the EV subsidies in the US but they just went out and created a huge regressive tax on everyone not driving an EV.

> The real winners will be everyone who destroyed their own oil demand. I went out and bought an EV in May to replace an ICE vehicle, and the other car in the household hasn't burned through a full tank in the months since. They may have killed the EV subsidies in the US but they just went out and created a huge regressive tax on everyone not driving an EV.

LOL, I sold my car and bought an e-bike.

I catch the bus, so I'm completely independent of any fuel shortages because buses are... hang on... damn.

(Actually most of the buses here are electric, as are the trains, but yeah, there's still an awful lot of stuff run on diesel that affects you indirectly).

>the other car in the household hasn't burned through a full tank in the months

My gas car was filled in November and has half a tank. EV's are such a better experience and so much cheaper to operate[^1] that most owners don't want to go back to gas.

[1] - dependent on one's access to inexpensive electricity. In the U.S. using DC fast chargers is often more expensive than gasoline.

> household hasn't burned through a full tank in the months since. They may have killed the EV subsidies in the US but they just went out and created a huge regressive tax on everyone not driving an EV.

Modern fuel blends are usually 10-15% ethanol. Ethanol is an alcohol, and thus is able to absorb ambient water from the air into the gasoline solution. Gasoline stored for a long time will generally increase in water content (if I am not mistaken lol), thus it maybe for future reference, try to avoid ethanol based fuels if possible if you're not gonna be using your ICE car. It's like how people who store their motorcycles or fancy performance cars during the winter leave it without fuel, or add a fuel stabilizer.

Will the tradespeople (contractor) crowd turn up in this thread and cheer on the oil companies for making good money, damn any effect on the rest of the economy? ;)

> Will the tradespeople (contractor) crowd turn up in this thread and cheer on the oil companies for making good money

Huh?

There was a thread about data-centers hiring trades for $$$ ad everyone was cheering and anyone who asked tough questions like "why is supply so inelastic and is that a good thing?" got screeched at by ideologies. He's poking fun at that.

The "(contractor)" bit is because it's usually not the guy doing the actual work making the big bucks. That guy's making marginally more. It's the guy billing that guy out who's seeing the lions share of the huge price increases.

How many of those people who got paid are complaining about it? Less demand is still more than zero.

> the guy billing that guy out who's seeing the lions share

The trades are pretty flat. Plenty of contractors become millionaires before their white-collar analogs, even if you ignore the opportunity cost of college.

> The US government is continuing to release oil from its strategic petroleum reserve, which saw a drawdown of 3.8mn barrels to 307.7mn barrels — the lowest level in more than 40 years. Its operational minimum, below which further withdrawals risk damaging infrastructure and disrupting pipeline operations, is estimated at 180mn to 200mn barrels, according to industry analysts.

So [EDIT: half] a year of reserves left at current rates and levels.

No, less than a year, much less. There needs to be a certain level maintained in order to keep pressure and lot of the bottom stuff is unusable because of contaminants - it's like sludge.

> There needs to be a certain level maintained

Isn't that the "180mn to 200mn barrels"?

~300 - 200 = 100mn useful barrels.

If we're drawing it down by about 4 a week, that's about 25 weeks.

If it's really closer to the 180 needed to prevent collapse and hit unusable supply then it's 120mn barrels and we're at 30 weeks.

A year is 52 weeks.

That also is based on a massive assumption of constant draw rate. Something is probably going to change, who knows when. Maybe the war ends and things actually reopen soon. Maybe Iran manages to blow up Saudi pipelines avoiding the straight. Maybe China's SPR runs out (nobody knows what it's at) and international demand skyrockets again. Other reserves are likely to be eliminated soon as well, putting more international pressure.

I wouldn't have a clue what the rate will be in a month or two, but I can't imagine it'll be anywhere near the same as the past few weeks.

Regardless of usage patterns, oil simply can't go above a certain price or a chunk of the northeast dies in winter.

This war is the largest self inflicted wound to the US in history. And Trump is pretending like all is fine because he keeps, erroneously, believing the oil problem he caused will resolve itself.

Of course the next (Dem) president will be blamed for low oil reserves and high prices to refill it.

Oh yeah, I fucked up my math. Thanks.

From what I understand, below 300 you start having issues, there's also a minimum national security level at 250 (not legally binding).

> below 300 you start having issues

Source?

I'll try to find it again, it was in a Bloomberg podcast about energy.

This is unfamiliar territory, and honestly it's still an assumption. No one is sure at what level the system needs to remain stable.

As the private/working reserves are set to reach operational minimums in a month or less at the current pace, the SPR will have to increase draw rate or there will have to be further demand destruction. If it goes to 7mn a week, below the 9.9mn peak draw recorded, that's 4.5 months. If it has to exceed peak rates as private/working reserves running out bites more than the optimistic numbers I'm using, or if China returns closer to pre-war oil imports, it will run out in 2-3 months. Before it runs out, the maximum draw rate will likely start falling - there are multiple facilities and some are already at or close to operational minimums - which will force demand destruction even before operational minimums.

The operational minimums for commercial crude inventories are estimated at 300-380mn barrels, with current inventories at . Weekly draw rate this week was 7.2mn just for the commercial inventories, and levels were ~400mn barrels. So there's 20-100mn barrels remaining in the commercial inventory. Even moreso than the SPR, this is uneven, and maximum draw rates will decrease as individual storage reaches minimums.

Other countries have also been tapping into their own strategic reserves. When those run dry, that will put more pressure on any remaining sources.

I am struggling to find updates on European reserve levels, but they must look similarly dire at this point.

Literally the dumbest president of all time.

For those who don't have access to ft.com, here's a link with the time series of the SPR from the EIA:

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W...

So the US has 25 weeks, or 6 months of oil reserves left. One thing to note is that most jet fuel for europe comes from persian gulf oil. The US has been supplying Europe with jet fuel (at the cost of American gasoline) since the beginning of the war. If the US stops pumping out of the strategic reserve, there's not enough oil to produce both enough gas to stay below $5 a gallon, and keep the transatlantic/european aviation industry afloat. Iran has nothing to lose by turtling through the mid-terms and into January. They've been preparing for this war for 45 years, and everything is mostly going according to plan.

This just in: Failed casino huckster defeated by country that invented chess. Ric Romero has more on this late-breaking story at 11!

Nitpick: Iranians didn't invent chess. Four player chess called Chaturanga was developed in India, then it was picked up by the Iranians (in Farsi, it's Shatranj) and later the Arabs (at some point here, it became a 2 player game). Then the Spanish picked it up from the Arabs. The Spanish and the Italians buffed the Queen and Bishop allowing these two pieces much greater movement, and this is chess as we know it today.

The best kind of correct!

Another way to put it is that while chess originated in India, it was the Persians who gave us the term "checkmate." Which doesn't exactly invalidate my point.

This directly because of the U.S. support of Israel. I also think as long as America keeps supporting Israeli military actions, there will be inflation. I won't forget how they enacted economic policies that knowingly caused layoffs of so many friends and colleagues but spared Israel with countless billions in spending. What was the point in increasing interest rates if we're going to enable genocides, increase gas prices, and spend so much money on defending America's worst ally?

Don't worry everything is going according to god emperor Trump's plan. TRUST THE PLAN

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