Diesel Margins Top $100 a Barrel to Reach Record High as Supply Crunch Grows | Hacker News Reader

Diesel Margins Top $100 a Barrel to Reach Record High as Supply Crunch Grows

bloomberg.com

75 pointstoomuchtodo56 comments

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https://archive.today/FXENu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_spread

https://rbnenergy.com/market-data/3-2-1-crack-spread

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1630

https://financialpost.com/news/posthaste-an-energy-shock-muc...

This should help with transition to electric vehicles.

On the other hand, batteries for EVs are produced in even smaller number of countries (mostly China) then oil is pumped (Middle east, US, Russia, Canada).

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/global-battery-markets-are-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_extra...

#StreetCarsAreAThing

Chinese companies also supply 15-20% of the world's fuel tanks for cars and more for heavy vehicles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAPP_Automotive_Systems. Funny how that's not a problem.

Batteries. Are. Not. Oil. They are oil tanks.

"However, more than 90% of battery storage applications rely on LFP batteries that are almost exclusively supplied from China, which accounts for almost all global manufacturing capacity and the associated technical expertise. Korean producers are investing to scale up LFP battery production that can offer an alternative, but they face intense competition from established, lower-cost Chinese producers in an oversupplied market."

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/global-battery-markets-are-...

Doesn't change anything. If oil stops flowing you're out of energy. If batteries stop flowing, you continue using the batteries you already have and your own manufacturing suddenly doesn't struggle to compete. We've already talked about this several times.

Can't be soon enough. I'm currently in a country with lots of old diesel vehicles from Western Europe. I was just walking to pick up my EV with HEPA filters from cleaning. The amount of fumes around street makes it unbearable to walk alongside road.

highest Diesel price per gallon national average was $5.81 after covid June 2022

we are most certainly going to break that by the end of the year (it's $5.47 average today)

they are trying to use Strategic Oil Reserve (and maybe Venezuela) as a piggy bank

but all that's about to break badly, permanently

if this administration lets it go down to 70 million barrels despite the warnings by experts at 300 million, they'll never repair the damage

When you say “never repair the damage,” do you mean that the practicality of refilling the stores is impossible due to demand requirements, or something else I’m missing?

i'm not an expert in the oil industry, but my understanding is that caverns they have made are full of liquid to keep them from collapsing. For every barrel of oil they pump out, they pump a barrel of water in, and push more oil to the top and grab it out. And that once a certain percentage of it is just water, it changes its density, and all the calculations for its 'holding' strength were assuming a certain density range..

The caverns the oil are stored in are old salt mines that were repurposed but that means the walls and pillars are made of salt. They pump water into the caverns to float the oil to the top when they extract it.

The water itself already dissolves the salt but if you get down to 70 million barrels then you start getting salt water touching on the plumbing which corrodes it, as well as the last bits of oil are sludgy and can also foul the pipes.

The strategic oil reserves were not built with an expectation of being used perpetually, they had a lifetime expectation of 5 full drawdowns and we’ve repeatedly done fractional drawdowns.

I only learned this a year ago and felt like we as the public have been mislead as growing up and as an adult the government always presented drawdowns as something that wouldn’t be a problem, we could always just top it back up later. And although I hate ever doing both sides arguments that’s been the impression I got from every admin since Clinton.

>_< oh my god

I really was not expecting anything like this. Thank you.

The refining bottleneck is the part people miss. Crude supply headlines get all the attention but margins blow up when you can't process what you have.

I think declaring the Straight of Hormuz a US territory will solve this problem.

Declaring the US an enemy to the free people of the world is going to solve it, that’s for certain.

How? Or was it sarcasm?

Personally I assume there was an implied /s at the end

I can imagine Pete Hegseth saying that exact sentence to President Trump.

Well, there's an unspoken rule in SV/HN circles about when the take Trump's idiocies seriously and when to ignore them.

For example, "Gulf of America" and "Department of War" you're supposed to take seriously, and all SV communications feature these prominently. Correcting someone about the fact that "The Department of War" doesn't exist will get you downvoted, but apparently you're not supposed to take "Straight of Hormuz is US territory" seriously? I'm am very bad at discerning this rule.

Correcting someone about the fact that “The Department of War” doesn’t exist is pedantic.

I wouldn’t go downvote a random comment making the correction, but if I posted a substantive comment remarking on current events and received a reply only pointing out that “it’s ACTUALLY the Department of Defense” then I’d definitely downvote that.

Correcting others’ language on this point isn’t saving democracy, it’s needling others on technicalities who very well might be largely aligned with your views. I think the altered name is clownish and reflects the buffoonery of everybody in charge, but I might still use it when making a point because using it in context is not an endorsement.

If people downvoted pedantry, everyone on HN would have negative karma.

No, it's something closer to The Parable of the Green Grocer from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless. The MAGAfication of large parts of Tech means that lots of people see themselves as respectable, serious, insiders. Pointing out the utter ridiculousness of what they profess to believe is extremely gauche.

If the language doesn't matter, then why have the autocratic authoritarians made such a point of promulgating that language? To me, it's a line in the sand that they've drawn - along with the rest of their dubious alternative reality that we're supposed to eat and repeat to demonstrate allegiance.

I know it's real work to go against popularized framings, but it's work we need to do.

That's apparently the latest bright idea out of the White House.

And no, that's not out of The Onion.

You can find all the news articles here:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hormuz+us+territory&ia=web

I miss the days when world leaders read from the internet but didn't post to it.

Trump did actually make this proclamation today. It was a sarcastic comment.

Thank you. That answers my question. I was still downvoted though.

Which time?

A couple of years ago I made the observation that the West would start to copy what China is doing. Ofcourse its only wrong when China does it...

> A couple of years ago I made the observation that the West would start to copy what China is doing. Ofcourse its only wrong when China does it...

There's no point in seeing anything coming or being right about anything, because the vast majority of people will ridicule you and tell you you're wrong until well after it's too late to change the situation for the better. The tiny handful of us who actually care about a future are a microscopic minority and basically powerless to change it. Best to just live our lives the best we can and to hell with what the rest of the world is doing at this point.

Why the down vote? It was a serious question.

Now that you mention it, I'm surprised it hasn't been renamed to Straight of Freedom.

This is a refining capacity problem, not an crude oil supply problem. The various wars have taken out refining capacity and transport capacity.

On the crude oil side, the US strategic petroleum reserve is declining rapidly.[1] That took a hit during COVID and the early Ukraine war because production was down. Refilling started afterward, but didn't take it up to normal levels. There's still maybe a year of oil left.

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

Doubt there’s a year. They’re currently draining it down to like 270-280ish million barrels. Which is breaking the integrity of the caverns and they can’t actually drain it completely it needs something like 100ish million barrels at minimum capacity to not fuck up the pipes.

On the integrity side. The caverns were only designed for a lifetime of 5 full drawdowns[1]. The caverns the oil is stored in and the pillars supporting them are made of salt. They get the oil out by pumping water in which floats the oil up.

Salt has certain integrity problems when submerged in water or so I’ve been told.

This current admin doesn’t appear to accept the idea of negative consequences for their actions so I would not be surprised if they destroy the caverns because they think they can suck every last drop out.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/frequent-oil-draws-f...

It's very annoying that the cost of fixing all this and replenishing the stockpile is going to most likely fall on people who had little to nothing to do with it becoming such a big problem.

The cost of fixing this will be everyone's problem. If we suddenly have to ramp up domestic production because diesel is >$10/gal it'll be a no holds barred unmitigated environmental catastrophe. We will be drilling and spilling absolutely everywhere, because the alternative is dead people in the streets.

Emergencies like this are one nightmare scenario accelerant of climate disaster.

The dead people in the streets are already why diesel is >$10/gal.

Don’t want expensive gas? Don’t start wars. Invest more in peace than war.

well sure.. obviously. but only very few actually have any control over that and they're not incentivized to choose peace. the best the rest of us can do is vote in elections. it doesn't generally work out very well though.

Actually we can do a lot more than just vote. We can demand justice for our own war crimes, and not be complacent about it. We can hold our own democracies accountable for the mass murder that we pay for. We can absolutely demand that prosecutions occur - or else, what else are our claims of liberal, free democracy good for?

The apathy you describe allows the bombs to continue to fall. Every 15 minutes. For the past 26 years, mostly on innocent human beings.

We can absolutely dissuade the continued dehumanization of cultures our ruling elite deem inferior and thus qualified for destruction. We can absolutely reach outside our own cultural bubbles and discover the truth of those we are taught, by authorities, to hate.

We can resist. We must resist. Or else, what are our societies good for?

The resistance you're talking about only works if like 3% of the population take to the streets. Once you see police officers marching with protesters that's when they'll start to listen. That's only ever happened once. It'll only happen again if a large number of american kids (tens or hundreds of thousands) are dying in foreign lands for years on end--i.e. not soon. That's why our leaders wage low intensity wars.

The oil crisis we're talking about here is knocking on our door right now. No amount of protesting is going to stop it.

When things get bad enough you'll see resistance. We're not there yet.

It all starts somewhere. Unless we, the people, actually rise and use our power to stop them, warrior narcissists will be lighting fires in perpetuity.

>The oil crisis we're talking about here is knocking on our door right now. No amount of protesting is going to stop it.

True, not until Americans start feeling the pinch for all the wars they have allowed to happen, in their name.

No time like the present. Demand justice for your war crimes, Americans.

Don't get me wrong, I think yours is a good example. It's important for people to have an example to reference when they want to resist but don't know how to do it, or who to contact, or where to start. But I don't believe resistance will accomplish anything very meaningful anytime soon.

[edit] half baked thought: I wonder how the resistance phenomenon interacts with nuclear weapons. In all the prior wars in human history, as far as I am aware, there were small pacifist or anti-war movements. But only in the big post-nuclear great powers proxy conflict that happened in Vietnam was there a sufficiently large antiwar movement to actually accomplish something. I wonder if we humans can somehow subconsciously sniff out cowardice in our leadership. Nuclear weapons have made all nations cowards--nobody is willing to lay it all on the line and fight anymore because the consequences are too great. All that is to say, I wonder if we're all a hell of a lot more warlike and savage than we'd like to admit. I'm sure this is a well studied topic and I'm totally ignorant of the scholarship so someone please chime in and straighten this bullshit out :p

Our technological grasp has exceeded our societal capability to responsibly wield and direct it. This same situation was absolutely rife in philosophical circles around the world wars of the last century, (see Heidigger's writings on technology), and the stakes are only higher now.

We are now down the last generation to have eye witnessed and executed nuclear Holocaust. Their tapes are all that remain. The first generations to truly industrialize the process of bringing death (rise of the machine gun, poison gas, concentration camps, weaponization of aircraft and the flying machine), have likewise, left the experiential pool, leaving only their written, and otherwise recorded material behind which does a fat lot of good if no one can be arsed to actually read, watch, or be affected by these cautionary accounts.

Throw in the increasing centralization of wealth and power, the unchecked consolidation running rampant, and massive arbitrage of the third world to avoid paying for the externalities of our industrial bases, and the knock-on consequences arising from climate change and concomitant political destabilization, and the stage is set for some very, very bad times if we do not mature and get very damn serious, very quick.

There are a few things we can do about the nuclear situation and the state-level cowardice you rightly identify.

We can start uncovering the secrets for how those nuclear weapons are being used against us. For example, nuclear blackmail is a very, very real situation in the West right now - there are states which are getting their way with human rights abuses at massive scale, because they threaten the nuclear option.

Which states? Under which conditions are the threats being made?

With resistance, we call for war crimes prosecutions for our own criminals. But we also address the state secrecy dilemma: the corruption of all governments begins with the secrets they keep. What are those secrets? Reveal them. Demand that there be no more “national security secrets” held like a sword of Damocles over the citizens’ heads - reveal them.

Resistance is not just protest. It is Wikileaks and Snowden and others. It is constant, non-stop, pressure on the ruling elite to have their crimes revealed and prosecuted. It is the Epstein prosecutions, actually happening. It is the pressure from the entire world - not just the local population - to have these secrets declassified and revealed, sordid details and all.

The nuclear threat is real. Who are making these threats, and what are their crimes?

Just like any war, ever.

This is why we don’t start wars, kids.

That’s why we don’t vote for the fascist who attempted to coup its way to power

This is why you prosecute your own war criminals before falling in line, goosestep-wise behind them, to “go after those inferior cultures, over there”, you mean ..

No, that is why you vote for the person who isn't the fascist. But that was too much to ask in the last election. Just not voting for the fascist isn't enough. You need to support/improve/give energy to the alternative. Instead too many chose to just not vote for the better alternative and now here we are.

Agreed

Shouldn't it be profitable? Buying low and selling high. Like, the current oil in there was bought at below $60/barrel or so and sold at 50% higher price or whatever. The oil is always sold at a much higher price (otherwise it wouldn't be available in the first place).

You can't fuel an aircraft carrier from profits, if the oil runs out.

Hate to be that guy but aircraft carriers run on nuclear power. The jets on the other hand...

Every other surface ship in the task force, along with resupply vessels, also burns oil.

The US had nine nuclear cruisers, but retired the last one, the USS South Carolina in 1999.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_cruisers_of_th...>

Currently the US only operates nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (11 active, two under construction), and submarines (69 active).

But the person who is president when it incurs the cost, is probably not going to be the president when it makes the profit. That is one of the problems with things like this where you can get the blame for doing the responsible thing.

“Annoying” is more than euphemistic

The upside is that some diesel engines could run on alt fuels via transesterification, but given the supply chain isn't there I would gather electrification would happen faster. Curious how far they could push blends in a modern diesel if needed. Modern fuel rails (at 30k+ ft lbs) require the lower viscosity of refined diesel unlike older motors.

It is just amazing watching how markets are working to build prosperity for the rich. With scarcity a thing of the past, bombing choke points is proving to be wildly profitable and as capital never sits still it can be wherever conditions are nicer. whoooeee $2.40 a gallon of pure profit, but when you strip away the rest of the scam, pumping, production, shipping and distribution are still only $1/gal, so full profits not counting interest lending to people to buy the car and the fuel in the first place are more than 75% right now. And with NOWHERE left to put the money, AI.

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