Diesel Margins Top $100 a Barrel to Reach Record High as Supply Crunch Grows(www.bloomberg.com)
57 pointsby toomuchtodo4 hours ago6 comments
  • leonidasrup27 minutes ago
    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...

  • Animats3 hours ago
    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...

    • lovich3 hours ago
      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...

      • neaden3 hours ago
        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.
        • MomsAVoxell3 hours ago
          Just like any war, ever.

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

          • 2 hours ago
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        • dopa423652 hours ago
          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).
          • neadenan hour ago
            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.
          • axus2 hours ago
            You can't fuel an aircraft carrier from profits, if the oil runs out.
        • 271833 hours ago
          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.

          • MomsAVoxell3 hours ago
            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.

            • 27183an hour ago
              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.
              • MomsAVoxell42 minutes ago
                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?

                • 2718324 minutes ago
                  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.

                  • MomsAVoxell7 minutes ago
                    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.

        • mrguyorama14 minutes ago
          [dead]
  • metalman2 hours ago
    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.
  • martythemaniak3 hours ago
    I think declaring the Straight of Hormuz a US territory will solve this problem.
    • MomsAVoxell3 hours ago
      Declaring the US an enemy to the free people of the world is going to solve it, that’s for certain.
    • 2 hours ago
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    • cjbenedikt3 hours ago
      How? Or was it sarcasm?
      • duttish2 hours ago
        Personally I assume there was an implied /s at the end
        • pbkompasz2 hours ago
          I can imagine Pete Hegseth saying that exact sentence to President Trump.
        • martythemaniak2 hours ago
          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.

          • rybosome2 hours ago
            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.

            • martythemaniakan hour ago
              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.

      • Alive-in-202516 minutes ago
        Trump did actually make this proclamation today. It was a sarcastic comment.
      • cyberax2 hours ago
        That's apparently the latest bright idea out of the White House.

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

  • ck22 hours ago
    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

    • 2 hours ago
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    • Eric_WVGG2 hours ago
      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?
      • briffle2 hours ago
        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..
      • lovich2 hours ago
        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.

        • Eric_WVGGan hour ago
          >_< oh my god

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