What I'm Learning From Islam:

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Walks_in_islam

Source of the raw materials huh. That's funny. We are shipping excess naphtha from Alaska to China at a discount just to get rid of it.

http://www.shell.us/aboutshell/proje...rt-arthur.html was the last refinery expansion in the US.

I keep hearing about how there's little or no refinery expansion in the US.

News flash - I work in an industrial area. The following are building new refineries, all in the town where I work - ONEOK, Enterprise Products, Targa Resources, Exxon-Mobil, LoneStar. There are also a couple others whose names I am not sure of.

This is all in a town with a population of about 5000 people. Down the road there are about 4 or 5 other refineries which are expanding, building new processing units, expanding and upgrading existing ones, etc.

It's like people yammering about the Keystone Pipeline as if it was just on the drawing boards. Down here it's pretty much already completed and installed.

Also, there are numerous other pipeline expansions going on just as involved as Keystone.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Also, in regards to which countries are profiting off the oil business, yes it's true that ME countries have made it very favourable for petrochem countries (and others) to relocate or establish themselves there. Sort of like Halliburton moved their HQ to Dubai.

Does anybody think the average citizen in those countries really benfits from
such things?

As for ME oil and manufacturing countries, does anybody really believe the Carlyle Group, for example, has 'lost anything' to 'expanding Arab companies'?

The entire petrochem industry is run by a select few elites from various nations, America, Saudi, England, Holland, China, Russia, etc... and the vast majority of the disposable profits goes to the 'shareholders' of those consortiums, not the peoples of any particular country.

Also, US tax laws have driven overseas relocation of American business, for various reasons.

[Walks_in_islam]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I keep hearing about how there's little or no refinery expansion in the US.

News flash - I work in an industrial area. The following are building new refineries, all in the town where I work - ONEOK, Enterprise Products, Targa Resources, Exxon-Mobil, LoneStar. There are also a couple others whose names I am not sure of.


This is all in a town with a population of about 5000 people. Down the road there are about 4 or 5 other refineries which are expanding, building new processing units, expanding and upgrading existing ones, etc.

It's like people yammering about the Keystone Pipeline as if it was just on the drawing boards. Down here it's pretty much already completed and installed.

Also, there are numerous other pipeline expansions going on just as involved as Keystone.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Also, in regards to which countries are profiting off the oil business, yes it's true that ME countries have made it very favourable for petrochem countries (and others) to relocate or establish themselves there. Sort of like Halliburton moved their HQ to Dubai.

Does anybody think the average citizen in those countries really benfits from
such things?

As for ME oil and manufacturing countries, does anybody really believe the Carlyle Group, for example, has 'lost anything' to 'expanding Arab companies'?

The entire petrochem industry is run by a select few elites from various nations, America, Saudi, England, Holland, China, Russia, etc... and the vast majority of the disposable profits goes to the 'shareholders' of those consortiums, not the peoples of any particular country.

Also, US tax laws have driven overseas relocation of American business, for various reasons.

I don't yammer. I do expand refineries though. Lets look at what you are saying.

Enterprise Products is not a Refining company. They are building de-eth, de-prop, and de-C4 trains to process condensates recovered from natural gas wells. There are excess condensates in the natural gas that has to be removed before it can meet pipeline standards. Enterprise removes, separates, and sells them as ethane, propane, and butane. These are essentially waste products that are not for the fuel market, but for the petrochem market. Along with expanding their capacity to process them, they are also building a nice export terminal to export them as petrochem feedstock for overseas petrochem plants.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/10/02/e...port-terminal/

There are otherwise no major refinery expansions on the books in the US. What the Refineries ARE doing is building NHT units to comply with (new) Tier 3 standards for sulfur in gasoline. Please kindly note that an unintentional result of forcing refining companies to build these is that the refineries will see an overall drop in their blendstock octane reducing the amount of low-octane material that can be blended with the gasoline pool components and the overall amount of gasoline available to the market at fixed capacity. Conclusion: The price is expected to increase and less gasoline overall will be made. I wouldn't call that an expansion.

You say new refineries are being built. So name one: Size, location, and capacity. I say that there is not a single grass-roots refinery on the books EXCEPT for 2 being built by a foreign trading company, Trafigura. These will not process crude oil, they will process the same material that Enterprise processes and it will go directly to a shipping terminal for export.

The Saudis funded the Motiva expansion, it is now the largest US Refinery. Marathon doubled their size at Garyville a few years ago. That was 325,000 + 245,000 bpd capacity. That's 570,000 bpd. In the last 10 years, total added refining capacity was 633,000 bpd. That means that every other refinery on the books added a total of about 60000 bpd combined to their capacity. That's pretty pathetic.

For whatever reason, feedstocks that should be processed into finished commodities here in the US are getting shipped for processing overseas and billions are being poured into the Saudi eastern province and neighboring countries to produce commodities there. The issue was how terrible and backwards those countries are. The reality is that those countries are becoming preferred places to live, produce, and invest.

[phareztamar]

The issue was how terrible and backwards those countries are. The reality is that those countries are becoming preferred places to live, produce, and invest.

Yo dog. So, why don't you live there?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Walks_in_islam

I don't yammer. I do expand refineries though. Lets look at what you are saying.

Enterprise Products is not a Refining company. They are building de-eth, de-prop, and de-C4 trains to process condensates recovered from natural gas wells. There are excess condensates in the natural gas that has to be removed before it can meet pipeline standards. Enterprise removes, separates, and sells them as ethane, propane, and butane. These are essentially waste products that are not for the fuel market, but for the petrochem market. Along with expanding their capacity to process them, they are also building a nice export terminal to export them as petrochem feedstock for overseas petrochem plants.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/10/02/e...port-terminal/

There are otherwise no major refinery expansions on the books in the US. What the Refineries ARE doing is building NHT units to comply with (new) Tier 3 standards for sulfur in gasoline. Please kindly note that an unintentional result of forcing refining companies to build these is that the refineries will see an overall drop in their blendstock octane reducing the amount of low-octane material that can be blended with the gasoline pool components and the overall amount of gasoline available to the market at fixed capacity. Conclusion: The price is expected to increase and less gasoline overall will be made. I wouldn't call that an expansion.

You say new refineries are being built. So name one: Size, location, and capacity. I say that there is not a single grass-roots refinery on the books EXCEPT for 2 being built by a foreign trading company, Trafigura. These will not process crude oil, they will process the same material that Enterprise processes and it will go directly to a shipping terminal for export.

The Saudis funded the Motiva expansion, it is now the largest US Refinery. Marathon doubled their size at Garyville a few years ago. That was 325,000 + 245,000 bpd capacity. That's 570,000 bpd. In the last 10 years, total added refining capacity was 633,000 bpd. That means that every other refinery on the books added a total of about 60000 bpd combined to their capacity. That's pretty pathetic.

For whatever reason, feedstocks that should be processed into finished commodities here in the US are getting shipped for processing overseas and billions are being poured into the Saudi eastern province and neighboring countries to produce commodities there. The issue was how terrible and backwards those countries are. The reality is that those countries are becoming preferred places to live, produce, and invest.

How about Exxon-Mobil, Baytown, Texas? They have THREE new areas they are expanding, well, one at the Baytown facility, and two at the Mont Bellvieu facility (which is actually right next door, so to say... hard to describe unless you know the area).

These areas are practically doubling the size of their existing plants.

I agree too much work is being off shored. It's not because Saudi is such a wonderful place to live... it's because money goes where money is treated best. And money is not currently treated very well here in the US of A.

Which I think is part of a larger design, but that's the tin foil in me hat...

[Walks_in_islam]

Originally Posted by Esaias

How about Exxon-Mobil, Baytown, Texas? They have THREE new areas they are expanding, well, one at the Baytown facility, and two at the Mont Bellvieu facility (which is actually right next door, so to say... hard to describe unless you know the area).

These areas are practically doubling the size of their existing plants.

I agree too much work is being off shored. It's not because Saudi is such a wonderful place to live... it's because money goes where money is treated best. And money is not currently treated very well here in the US of A.

Which I think is part of a larger design, but that's the tin foil in me hat...

<grin> I guess I know the area.

Yes, they are building an ethane cracker. That expansion is part of their chemicals, not refining business. Again, except for a couple of grassroots refineries undergoing the permitting process in the Dakotas and some units being built to meet the (yes, again, new) gasoline sulfur regulations there is no new refining investment in the US.

[Walks_in_islam]

Originally Posted by phareztamar

The issue was how terrible and backwards those countries are. The reality is that those countries are becoming preferred places to live, produce, and invest.

Yo dog. So, why don't you live there?

Yo dog I did live there. I did my job and came back when it was done. God willing I will be going back very soon.

Next.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Walks_in_islam

<grin> I guess I know the area.

Yes, they are building an ethane cracker. That expansion is part of their chemicals, not refining business. Again, except for a couple of grassroots refineries undergoing the permitting process in the Dakotas and some units being built to meet the (yes, again, new) gasoline sulfur regulations there is no new refining investment in the US.

Well that sux.

[Aquila]

I think it's easy to forget, or not to realize, that Islamic nations were once some of the most advanced on the planet. So much medical knowledge was gathered from Alexandria Egypt and advanced upon in the Islamic world. There were social advancements with regards to women also.

However, with the fall of so many Islamic kingdoms, democracy is growing. This has caused violent factions to rise up and essentially exploit Islam for their own political gain. Sadly, these factions resort to radical fundamentalism to gain support from the masses. It's like saying, "If you believe in Allah, his Prophet, and the Quran, you will support us... because we enforce it as it was intended." We see the same things in America in the Christian Right and various radical Conservatives.

So, today... the unrest, the oppression, and the socially backward policies are largely due to politics more than the Islamic religion.