smokindog

Guys, read below!

I have been communicating back and forth with another DTR member who is currently in Chile for business. In my most recent response from him he had this to say.....


"Diesel here is now 9 cents a gallon, it was 15 cents over in Venezuela yesterday, and 11 cents in Peru last Tuesday. Seems the folks in the States and Canada are getting "special fuel pricing."

Spot prices for crude are the same here as in the States, but nobody is paying spot. That is like buying one shake for your roof, so you pay a huge premium. The actual average barrel price is closer to $27, what a difference from what I read in the Wall Street Journal that the folks in the US are being told. Boy, are the citzens up north stupid to be buying into the current fuel pricing up there. Someone is really getting rich on your backs!

All the US guys should just pack it up and move south! We carry guns, have no crime, and our tax rate is next to nothing. Property taxes on an estate that would be valued at about 2 million in the US are less than $7.35 US in a year down here. I could get used to this place."


I don't know anything about South and Central American economies and I can't imagine that they are using anywhere near the amount of oil as we do here in North America, but wow! Now I just wonder what the median income is down there. If it is like $8000 annually then it is all relevant, but if the average worker has the potential to make $60K+ then something isn't right!

Shovelhead

You're right, there are some shenanigans going on a-la the ENRON type transactions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20...ghdieselprices

Mon Aug 8, 7:55 AM ET

A refinery outage and ill-timed shipments of diesel from California to Chile are pushing prices of the vital fuel past the $3-a-gallon mark and threatening to crimp the state's economic growth as truckers, farmers and other big users struggle to cope.

................

That production glitch wouldn't have hit the market so hard if oil traders, faced with a surplus of diesel in June, hadn't sold large quantities of the fuel to foreign buyers just weeks before the El Segundo fire.

"There was too much diesel on the West Coast" a month or so ago, said Carl Boyett, chief executive of Boyett Petroleum in Modesto. Then three companies sent diesel cargos to other markets, all around the same time, he said.

Vitol, an international oil trader, was one of the exporters. Another was ConocoPhillips, according to Boyett and others. Both of those shipments ended up in Chile. The third company, BP, exported diesel from its Cherry Point, Wash., refinery to Mexico, but the fuel was too high in sulfur to qualify for use in California or Washington, according to spokesman Phil Cochrane.

The Vitol and ConocoPhillips shipments that left San Francisco this summer contained ultra-low-sulfur fuel that could have been sold here, said Roberts of Tower Energy. Former Vitol trader Andy Lipow estimated that the shipments totaled about 21 million gallons of diesel — equal to about 3 1/2 days of typical consumption in California.

ConocoPhillips couldn't be reached for comment. Vitol, a Dutch-Swiss company whose U.S. headquarters are in Houston, said the shipment to Chile made financial sense at the time.

At current prices, said Vitol Vice President Jeff Hepper, "I wish [those barrels] were still on the West Coast."

So do a lot of people.

Because of its limited production, Chevron has been selling diesel only to its own stations and to customers with supply contracts, forcing many regular customers without contracts to find alternative sources for fuel. One of those cut off by Chevron was Pilot Travel Centers, a nationwide company that has eight large truck stops in California.

"We've had minor outages," said Bill Dibble, Pilot's manager of supply and trading for the West. "But the bigger problem has been the prices. Our cash outlay [for fuel] is twice what it was — if we spent $1 before, we've got to put out $2 now to make 10 cents a gallon."

In the meantime, California refiners other than Chevron can be expected to show extra-healthy profits for however long the diesel problem persists, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, a New Jersey firm that tracks petroleum prices.

"It's profitable to make diesel everywhere in this country," he said. "But in California, it's really off the charts."

With the retail prices already breaching the $3-a-gallon level and money to be made, Kloza and others said, there are plenty of opportunists trying to get cargos to California before the prices retreat. It can take weeks for a tanker to reach California, however, and it's unclear how many tankers will come, when they'll arrive — and how soon diesel prices might come down.

"There is genuine concern at the moment," Kloza said. "I've got a hunch my nectarines from California are going to cost a bit more in the next few months."

IA_James

Too much diesel around meaning that prices would have to come all the way down to 2.95 a gallon out there I suppose.

Shovelhead

Too much diesel = oil companies that won't be able to jack up heating oil prices when the cooler weather gets here.

P.J

Now THATS what I like to hear!

Shovelhead

But that's why they sold their "surplus" diesel to Chile.

P.J

Oh,
I read "won't be able to jack up prices" and I lose the whole context of your post.

Tiny

I am a little miffed about the price of diesel, and if we are selling off our surplus to Chile and Mid-American countries, how much did we get for it? They are selling it for a dime, they did not pay $2.50 a gallon. This is getting old, and we are getting the Kamma Sutra done to us.

infidel

Note that they say the surplus sent down south was only enough to supply just Calif for three and a half days.
We're talking a drop in the bucket here.

Shovelhead

At $3.00 or more a gallon, those "drops" are getting pretty darned expen$ive.

yfz450guy

we pay more for all fuels cuz we use more than anyone else on the planet.

P.J

Don't forget China, if they were still using buggies drawn by human power fuel prices would be much better for us. Plus, they are burning quite a but of diesel to provide us with 97% of the goods we use daily.
Thank's again Wal-Mart.

Hannibal

Walmart?

http://www.cummins.com.cn/

Oops, here it is in English.

http://www.cummins.com.cn/indexe.html

Shovelhead

I thnk there's a difference between building stuff in China for sale and use in China,....
and building stuff in China, shipping it across the globe for sale and use in the US.

P.J

I don't follow?
My point was that they are what WE used to be in this "Global" Economy. (The leader in manufacturing, producing, R&D, etc.)