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Post by Tex on Sept 14, 2012 17:55:45 GMT -6
Crude oil from new wells in Texas is flooding the Gulf coast. This flood will increase for the foreseeable future. Refineries in the northeast need the crude. There is a pipeline bottleneck between here and the east coast due to the increased Texas production.
The Jones Act, a 1920s union backed relic, prohibits shipping between US ports in foreign flagged vessels. Trouble is, there aren't many US flagged tankers. Registering a US tanker is hellish expensive and subject to ridiculous rules. Shipping crude from Texas to NYC area is about $1.20 bbl for foreign tankers vs. $4.00 or so for US flagged tankers. That's an additional dime a gallon at the pump.
The Wall Street Journal reported that it was an absolute rarity when a new tanker American Phoenix delivered a load of Texas crude from Corpus Christi, Texas to Bayway, New Jersey simply because of all of the hoops which had to be jumped through to accomplish this.
Either repeal the act or adopt world standards for US flagged tankers. It is ridiculous for east coast refineries to pay more for middle east crude because red tape impedes delivery of domestic crude.
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Post by Chicago Jake on Sept 14, 2012 18:25:56 GMT -6
I'd like to hear more about this new flood of crude oil. I haven't heard it mentioned in the media.
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Post by Tex on Sept 14, 2012 19:12:42 GMT -6
I'd like to hear more about this new flood of crude oil. I haven't heard it mentioned in the media. I mentioned it to a pilot buddy in Atlanta the other day and he hadn't heard of it either. Texas onshore crude production is rising rapidly. It is under state of Texas, rather than federal permitting, and, if you have your ducks in a row and have done your homework, you can walk a permit through the Texas Railroad Commission in a morning. North Dakota production is booming too, but the available pipelines from there lead to the Gulf coast. Texas is now exporting natural gas to Mexico in large volumes too, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago. |
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Post by Merlot Joe on Sept 14, 2012 19:35:20 GMT -6
Registering a US tanker is hellish expensive and subject to ridiculous rules. Shipping crude from Texas to NYC area is about $1.20 bbl for foreign tankers vs. $4.00 or so for US flagged tankers. That's an additional dime a gallon at the pump. Here goes us stupid Americans again. We could help ourselves here but no lets make it hard to get ship register and lets make it more expensive than the foreign tanks can do. We will never learn. |
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Post by Chicago Jake on Sept 14, 2012 19:53:29 GMT -6
Well, to be fair, we have all those extra regulations for darned good reasons. Like to save the spotted owls or some crap like that.
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Post by Tex on Sept 14, 2012 19:59:04 GMT -6
The ships have to be American built, American owned, and Amerian crewed to qualify. We can shuttle oil around the Gulf coast using tug pushed barges in the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. The east coast waterway is a different animal, being primarily pleasure boats. The high seas are no place for the 1200-1500 foot barge tows which are used on the gulf coast.
As an alternative, we could permit some new pipelines to the east coast. During the big war, the first big cross country petroleum line was constructed from Longview Texas to New Jersey. It went from drawing board to delivering crude in 11 months. We spend longer than that today worrying about some fucking lizard.
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Sept 14, 2012 20:40:01 GMT -6
Tex, is this The Jones Act you're saying should be repealed? www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-jones-act.htmSo, are you suggesting this be repealed so we can have more jobs to outsource? Once we're done repealing this, can we also please repeal the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution once and for all? I mean, if The Jones Act is a relic, certainly the right to keep and bear arms is, too, no? |
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Post by Tex on Sept 14, 2012 21:00:50 GMT -6
The intent of the Jones Act was to maintain a strong merchant marine fleet. The effect was to price ourselves out of the market for high seas vessels. The number of "Jones Act" tankers capable of high seas crude transport is quite small, very expensive, and hard to schedule.
Watch the high seas ships entering US ports. Less than 1% are US flagged. Our merchant marine fleet consists of tug boats and ferries. Was that the intent of the act?
Either repeal the act or ease the regs so that compliance with the act is not so difficult.
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Post by Merlot Joe on Sept 15, 2012 1:34:26 GMT -6
Well, to be fair, we have all those extra regulations for darned good reasons. Like to save the spotted owls or some crap like that. Got a gun? Shot the owl and have it stuffed and then send it to one of those left wing tree huggers. |
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Post by Tex on Sept 16, 2012 16:31:33 GMT -6
Daniel Yergin had a good article in the weekend Wall Street Journal about expanding US oil production. online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444301704577631820865343432.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_ThirdYergin is an expert on energy in the macro geopolitical context. His info is probably last years (2011) for which there are cumulative totals. His perspective is worldwide. My perspective is Texas and the few other states where my friends operate but is last week's information. (We sat with a bunch of them at last week's Texas game and we arrived a couple of hours early, ate and drank with them at the stadium, and talked shop and talked shit too.) The oil and gas reserves are there, whether we become energy independent or even a net exporter again depends on our will to do so. It is one of the few industries where we can produce more efficiently than most of the world and have a viable export industry. |
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Post by Chicago Jake on Sept 16, 2012 23:14:03 GMT -6
Unfortunately, we also have a corner on the world market for pussies, and just don't have the cojones to do the dirty work any more. Not Texas, of course; I'm thinking more District of Columbia.
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