The Oil Drum: Europe

One of the critical factors in making sure that there is enough of an energy supply to meet the growing international demand lies in the logistics of the supply train that is going to have to provide it. When CERA and others point to the totality of the available resource, as Nate is pointing out in his series, they neglect the realities of that chain, and the parts that all have to work if the electric light is to go on the next time that you flip the switch on the wall.

Thus, if for example, Saudi Aramco tells Asian refiners that it is cutting supplies by 9% that does not mean that when a Japanese driver pulls into the gas station tomorrow that he will face a large EMPTY sign. Rather, in March Aramco tells the refiners that it will cut supply in later months, and thus the impact is not immediately evident. :

Saudi Aramco will cut exports of Arab heavy crude by as much as 20 percent to Japan, 9 percent to South Korea and 15 percent to China, refinery officials said. A Taiwanese refiner will receive a 10 percent cut in Arab heavy supply.

The gas that is in the pump came out of the oil well some time ago, and has had to pass though pipelines, storage, tanker shipment, refineries and additional storage before it actually leaves the pump nozzle to flow into the car gas tank. This takes away some of the immediate impact of the OPEC cut back in supply, and if this is, concurrently, occurring when the refineries normally reduce demand because of maintenance, then the impact can be further concealed.

Refineries in Asia typically close from April to June for repairs. Japan will see a peak of 26 percent of its capacity closed in May and South Korea will have 19 percent shut, mainly during the second half of June and the first half of July.

Unfortunately that “not-quite-just-in time-production” nature of the supply train also has a downside at the other side of this situation. When production increases again, if it does, then there will be an equivalent lag-time before our Japanese retailer can take down his EMPTY sign because the gas is back in town.

Hmm! Maybe the next book review I’ll do will be “The Boy’s King Arthur.” Well actually, given the controversy about him (he was a Celt and they ultimately lost – after he died - so he has been relegated to mythical status. The winners write the history books), perhaps that might not be such a good idea. I recently looked at an NRC survey showing the classes of disciplines at a University and while history had more than 8 subdivisions as I remember, there was no mention of energy per se, or most of the energy production disciplines – so just imagine the columns of controversy I might generate. But it also speaks, by itself, to how important certain issues are ranked in the corridors of the mighty.

So let’s get back to the status of the world of oil. And while, as one of the recent conferees noted, the public thinks that, since prices having dropped back “we survived the energy crisis,” sadly the world picture is really getting worse. Sometimes, when I have looked at what we have projected, I have consoled myself with the thought to myself along the lines of “well these are the lower estimates, it really isn’t going to be that bad.” Unfortunately the numbers that are now starting to pop up hold no such comfort, and are beginning to confirm what our contributors have been predicting for a while.