Same here! Been following and reading carefully this thread for some time, and although I'm not and investor, it's one of the best sources of information on PeakOil.com's forum.

Thank you to all posters, been learning a lot from all of you.

I ran across a interesting article about the refiners and where they're going to get their oil from in the Gulf Coast: It's long, so the summary is: Canada is fixin' to send heavy crude from the tar sands to Port Arthur via a new pipeline. So fears of input loss from Cantarell and Venezuela may be overblown:

Where oil and water mix
The state was built on oil and the Port Arthur refining hub on the gulf coast is happy to have Alberta's 'dirty 'oil
Claudia Cattaneo , Financial Post
Published: Saturday, November 01, 2008
PORT ARTHUR, Tex. -By the middle of the next decade, this weathered city in America's deep south abutting the Gulf of Mexico, will receive a flood of oil from Fort McMurray's oil sands plants. About one million barrels a day of Alberta oil will flow into the world's biggest refining market.

As far as long-time resident Floyd Batiste is concerned, it's about time.

"I am not a politician, but I think this country and Canada have a very good relationship," said Mr. Batiste, who runs the city's economic development corporation.


Dave Einsel for National Post

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Font:****TransCanada Corp. of Calgary and its partners have picked Port Arthur, about 150 kilometres east of Houston, to end the $12.2-billion Keystone pipeline that will feed local refineries and others perched along the U. S. Gulf Coast.

The surge of Alberta oil to the area could eventually swell to two million barrels a day, absorbing most of the volume growth expected from the deposits in the next decade.

With three long-established refineries, new liquefied natural gas plants under construction and so many pipeline connections its underground looks like a "spaghetti bowl," any talk of Canada's "dirty oil" hasn't caught on in the disadvantaged community, where many of the 56,000 residents are older and unskilled.

The community, whose boarded-up downtown resembles a Caribbean outpost passed over by the tourism industry, desperately needs good-paying jobs and investment.

Mr. Batiste said oil industry spending could make a lot happen.

"I would say probably less than 30% of workers in these plants actually live in Port Arthur. [Local] people aren't skilled enough," he said. "There has been a tremendous effort by just about every political entity, industry to upgrade the skill-set of people. In my opinion, industry has taken the lead."

After suffering deeply in the mid-1970s from a refinery downturn, then coasting for many years due to lack of investment, Port Arthur's economy is picking up.

Investments worth US$15-billion are beginning to flow in, some related to refinery expansions to process oil from Canada.

San Antonio, Tex.-based Valero Energy Corp., French major Total SA, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Saudi Aramco are all expanding their plants. Exxon Mobil Corp. is building a liquefied natural gas terminal.

"There are not many communities that will accept them, but we have always been a refinery town," said Mr. Batiste. Indeed, some plants are located a mile away from people's homes.

Like Fort McMurray, Port Arthur is an old oil town. The stuff is in its blood: the city's slogan is "Port Arthur, where oil and water do mix. Beautifully."

The Spindletop oil discovery in nearby Beaumont in 1901 ushered in the modern oil era in the United States, giving birth to oil companies like Gulf, Amoco and Humble Oil Co., now a part of Exxon.

Refineries were built to process the gusher. But as fields matured, imports were brought in to keep the refineries full.

Now, Port Arthur's refineries are among 30 spread out over the Texas/Louisiana coast, in Houston's Ship Channel, Lake Charles, Texas City and other points nearby. The region is the largest refinery centre in the world.

It keeps the nation on the move, processing seven million barrels a day (out of 17.4 million refined in the United States). When its plants are offline, as was the case last month during Hurricane Ike, many parts of the country grind to a halt.

For Canadian oil producers, the Gulf Coast is the Holy Grail: More refineries to process heavy oil than any other place on Earth.

Already, refiners import about 1.9 million barrels a day, largely from two sources: Venezuela (600,000 barrels a day) and Mexico (nearly one million barrels.)

Refiners started getting worried about future supplies from these sources three to four years ago, said Neil Earnest, a global refining expert and vice-president at Dallas-based Muse Stancil & Co.

Mexican crude production is in steep decline because its main oil field, Cantarell, is maturing. Meanwhile, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is a wild card. He continues to issue threats to cut off oil supply to the United States while forging alliances with countries like Russia.

Indeed, some supply contracts from Venezuela are coming to an end in 2011, said Russ Girling, president of pipelines at TransCanada, the unit that is building Keystone.

"As they look around the world for alternative sources of heavy supplies, what immediately hits the radar screen is Western Canada," Mr. Earnest said. "Country risk is about zero ... and there are very real prospects that supplies from Western Canada will increase in the near term. That is the attraction."

Canadian heavy oils are also similar to those produced in Mexico and Venezuela and can fill the gap at little additional cost to existing plants, he said.

Not everyone sees the oil sands as an ideal replacement. Green organizations such as Natural Resources Defense Council are up in arms over Keystone. In September, the group sued top U. S. state government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a bid to try to stop it. The Washington-based lobby group argues the pipeline will encourage oil sands development, resulting in big increases to greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Earnest said greenhouse gas emissions in Canada are not high on the agenda in the Gulf Coast industry.

Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero, argued its Port Arthur plant already processes oil similar to Canada's. "We will let the politicians deal with the politics of it. We are in the refining business, and as long as there is demand for fuel, companies like ours will meet that demand," he said.

Valero, the largest refiner in North America, with throughput capacity of 3.1 million barrels a day, has committed to being a shipper on Keystone, signing large supply contracts with Canadian producers. It has an option to take equity ownership.

Its refinery is able to process 100,000 b/d of Canadian heavy oil currently, Mr. Day said. The company is investing US$2.2-billion to handle even more Canadian supply.

"There was this whole debate about whether it's better to refine the oil in Canada where it exists, or is it better to bring the oil to where the refineries already are set up to process this kind of oil. We believe it's most cost-effective to ship it down by pipeline, to where refineries are already in place," Mr. Day added.

He was referring to the Alberta government's preference that more upgrading be done in province to capture greater economic benefits from the development of the oil sands. However, that strategy is losing traction as weaker oil prices and high construction costs in the province make upgrading in Alberta uneconomic.

Already, EnCana Corp. has linked up with ConocoPhillips, Husky Energy Inc. with BP PLC. Petro-Canada and Suncor Energy Inc. indicated last week they would look for refineries in the United States rather than upgrade in the province.

LyondellBasell's Houston refinery, built nearly a century ago and upgraded in 2003 to process heavy oil from Venezuela, is studying whether to source Canadian supplies. Partly owned by Venezuela's state-owned Citgo Petroleum from 1993 to 2006, the Rotterdam-based company has since re-acquired full ownership. It is now the world's third-largest chemical company and a producer of biofuels.

Spokesman David Harpole said the refinery still has a supply agreement with Venezuela, but believes "it's in our interest to maintain flexibility" and find new heavy oil sources.

"If we can overcome the logistical side of things and secure a long-term pipeline agreement to transport the material and a long-term crude supply agreement, we would look at opportunities to significantly increase our use of Canadian crude," he said.

With the world running out of energy options, the company is open to the oil sands, even if they generate more greenhouse gases than other sources, Mr. Harpole said.

"Look at offshore drilling, the challenges that come to that, the added depths that they are having to go to in the Gulf," he said. "The easy-to-find, lower-cost oil has been found around the world. We are going to have to look at alternatives and the most economical and environmentally responsible way of producing the oil sands."

With pipelines the missing link between Alberta's deposits and Gulf Coast refiners, several proposals to build them have emerged in recent years.

Keystone, which TransCanada is developing with partner ConocoPhillips, emerged as the frontrunner in July when it announced it had secured shipper support to expand and extend all the way to Port Arthur. The first phase, targeting the U. S. Midwest, is now under construction.

Rival Enbridge Inc. announced in August a $2.2-billion plan with partner BP to reconfigure existing pipelines to move oil sands production to Houston.

TransCanada's Mr. Girling said Keystone will eventually move 900,000 barrels a day of Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast in the next five to six years, in addition to 500,000 moving to Midwest refineries by 2010. TransCanada stands ready to build a lateral to Houston if needed.

Once built, the pipeline highway will make landlocked Alberta producers worry for the first time about hurricanes. Port Arthur was hit hard by Hurricane Ike, which flooded homes and streets, and caused refineries to suspend operations. As for Gulf refiners, they will get to know the challenges of extracting oil in Canada's north, such as when an Arctic cold snap turns off the tap for a while.
**************************
....Now I may be just looking for solace in this (I am an owner of Valero), but as I've said before piecing the energy puzzle together is a fascinating endeavor, and I've just found what I believe is one more piece.

Here's another piece related to refining operations, oil sands development, and how it will eventually end up in your gas tank:

"Plans for a nearly seven-fold expansion of Murphy Oil’s Superior refinery are on hold.

The company, with headquarters in El Dorado, Ark., is putting the brakes on detailed design engineering until it can find a partner to provide a reliable source of crude from the Canadian oil sands to feed the expanded facility.

The proposed project would increase the refinery’s processing capacity from 35,000 barrels of crude oil per day to 235,000 barrels per day, making the Superior refinery the largest rather than the smallest of Murphy Oil’s three refineries. The company also operates a 120,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Meraux, La., and a 108,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Mill Haven, Wales.

If it happens, the $6 billion investment — the largest in Wisconsin history — could create 300 permanent jobs and 3,000 to 4,000 construction jobs.

“We’ve beaten down doors trying to find a partner for the project,” said Jim Krowitz, interim manager of the Superior refinery. “We have not come up with a partner yet.”

The company needs a partner to ensure a crude supply from the oil sands in Alberta. However, with crude prices recently hitting record highs, Murphy Oil has found no takers for the partnership. The company might have better luck now that crude oil prices are falling.

“With dropping crude prices — if demand stays up — it may look more favorable for Canadian producers to invest in,” Krowitz said. “When crude is $140 a barrel, they’re making lots of money. When crude is $60 a barrel, they’re not making near as much, and they might be interested in spending money to get into the U.S. fuels market rather than just be a crude supplier. That’s our hope.”

**************************************

My take: Maybe Valero and some of the other gulf coast-based refiners looked more attractive than Murphy. Just as an aside, Murphy markets a lot of gas and diesel through the Walmart gas stations.

The point was that the Renminbi/Yuan has little to no affect on the out come of trade as the true value continues to be meaningless, even as I post the Chinese are building plants in Mexico inorder to supply the needs and requirements of trade with the US not in Renminibi/Yuan but in Pesos!

The Globalization of the world takes on a completely different flavor when a currency such as the Renminbi/Yuan are not traded on the open market and can be manipulated at will by the state.

So whether one might believe the Renminibi/Yuan is up or down its has been the HKD that determines the true relative value of trade with China.

Regards

[align=center]Win or Lose
The Credit Crisis Will Cost Taxpayers[/align]
source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

p.s. my link button is not working on my home PC for some strange reason, so will try not to post any long links

Silver is pushing hard to go back above $10, breakout is possible on the resistance line, but another move down and sharp retrace would confirm a solid bottom (more likely outcome). we'll see...



Natural gas is going to get resolved soon - matter of weeks

[align=center]The Last Emperor of Rome[/align]
source:
A Date with Scarcity

[align=center]4H
Food, Fuel, Fertilizer & Fresh Water[/align]

What is your take on Obama Mr Bill? How will it affect the markets?

It must be nice to get someone who is, relative to G W Bush, a fiscal conservative!

[align=center]Sometimes Change Is Not Enough[/align]

[align=center]

[/align]
Sorry, I do not consider Obama a fiscal conservative. I do not consider anyone that spends & borrows to be a fiscal conservative. Neither Democrat, Republican or New Labor. That we are in a global recession and spending may be necessary is another issue. Wouldn't it have been better had they resisted the urge to deficit spend during the long expansion, so that their war chests would be full now to stimulate the economy during this slowdown without jeapordizing their fiscal discipline?

Not to mention that capital is going to get a whole lot more expensive now. All that government borrowing is going to be crowding-out commercial lending to businesses and individuals in the real economy. The net exporters of capital - oil producers, commodity exporters and Asian manufacturers - are all going to have less capital to export as the world economy slows. And many of them will have budget deficits of their own as they have also spent the surplus, and budgeted using high nominal energy, metal and commodity prices that now look unrealistic in the coming 18-24 months.

It seems quite unrealistic to me - a policy mistake - to think that we can treat the symptoms of a burst credit bubble by deficit spending and creating more debt much less solve the underlying problem that asset prices reflect that build-up in excessive money supply creation and credit expansion in the first place. Policy makers are just buying time, or, worse, they may actually believe that they can spend their way out of this recession before asset prices find their natural underlying values?

I am not arguing against the ECB or the BOE cutting rates today. That seems a given. They are following the Fed's lead. I am not against public spending on needed infrastructure development both to make America more competitive and to stimulate the economy. They should have done this first of all back in 2001-02. Then we might have avoided the worst of the housing bubble altogether. Certainly, in a disinflationary environment lower interest rates are necessary to counter deflationary forces in the economy, and although lower interest rates might not encourage new lending or risk taking it does give relief to those who payments are linked to benchmarks such as LIBOR or the central bank's own lending rates.

However, in 9-18 months, say mid-2009 onwards, we might see the true cost of these fiscal bailouts and monetary easing as inflationary forces start to become more deeply entrenched. This might not necessarily show-up in a weak US dollar per se, if other central banks are following similiar policies, but it could definitely result in a loss in confidence in financial assets in favor of physical assets and hard commodities. Not a big surprise to many posters here on Peak Oil.

If everyone is trying to spend their way out of a recession by running deficits then someone has to be running a surplus to fund those deficits. So everyone cannot be deficit spending. It is impossible. So that extra money supply creation will have to flow into something. Most likely commodities. This is hardly solving the problem of the global imblances that have caused the current credit crisis, but more like a continuation of the same disasterous policies that projects these problems into the future. It is a wealth transfer from importing nations to exporting nations. That will not change depending on who is sitting in the White House or who controls both the Senate and Congress. Deficit spending is deficit spending. Raising some taxes does not automatically make one fiscally conservative. One step forward and two steps back is still moving in the wrong direction.[align=center]
[/align]
[align=center]Hope Meets Reality[/align]
source: Obama victory met with job losses, market mayhem

UPDATE: any currency hedging strategy this year would have been full of holes as a weak US dollar later turned into a weak euro, so exporters of all stripes have been vexed to manage these risks in a declerating global economy
source: Weak euro adds to Chinese exporters' woes

MrBill few people in this world will ever be gifted with the ability to speak with the amount of clarity and logic that you possess.
and this is egg-sack-lee why you will never be hired by the power elites to explain to the unwashed masses with pitch forks demanding blood why this country is going down the tubes. People can't handle the truth. They want to be lied to. They want to be told you can have your cake and eat it too. "Fiscal Responsibility" the belief that ultimately you can only spend $1 for every $1 you earn.....is dead. NO politician in power today has ever campaigned on such a platform and NO economist will ever be hired to go on TV to speak the truth.

MrBill if I ever get rich I'll open up a day-trading academy that will be modeled after Hogwarts castle.

They'll be a position open in the head of "Heterodox economics" department if you're interested.
It's doubtful the position will hold much respect (if any) within normal society however economists in general are getting Zero respect from just about everybody these days so you're probably already used to it.

It was a joke! You need to take a holiday.

Obama is a bit of an enigma. He is promising tax cuts for most - which is good, but also committing to further spending.

That said, he is the most gifted political orator I have ever seen and truly an inspiring leader. We need global action to tackle peak oil and climate change and he could be up to the job.

Oops! Sorry I missed the irony... I am off today to Austria for my ski patrol training. An on the hill instructor refresher plus update my outdoor emergency care and CPR skills. Not exactly a holiday, but at least a change of pace. I had to cancel in October due to the financial meltdown. I was quite discouraged to see yesterday's price movement, but if I cannot go this weekend I will miss an entire refresher cycle and my qualifications lapse. It has become an expensive hobby.

No worries, Cube. I am hired by 'them' for who I know and for what I know. My goal now is simply to have a long and happy life. I tried to pass some of that along here on Peak Oil, but for the most part people just do not want to know. It's a shame. They would sooner wear their ignorance like a badge of honor and defend that lack of knowledge with passion. I will finish Trader's Corner until year-end and then that is it for me. More than three years is enough. Time to move on to some more important stuff that I have been neglecting. Have a nice weekend. Cheers.

Most US baby boomers are not prepared for their retirement, and neither are the US and world economies. Boomers can help mitigate the consequences by remaining in the workforce beyond the traditional retirement age.

source: Why Baby Boomers Will Need To Work Longer
source: research@standardbank.com
[align=center]IMF: Spend Money![/align]
source: IMF warns of deepening recession in rich countries
[align=center]China: Spend Money (on us)![/align]
source: China tells rich polluting nations to change lifestyle

[align=center]A French Sovereign Wealth Fund Idea
No Capital, Just More Debt
No Restructuring, Just More State[/align]
source: Sarkozy Turns Sovereign Fund Idea Upside Down

[align=center]Say it ain't so, Angie!
She Puts the 'P' Back into Populism[/align]
source: Merkel Converts to `Bank-Bashing,' Budget-Busting as Vote Nears

What a coincidence I was thinking the same thing too.
I will wait for the stock market to make another break-out to the downside and afterwards I'll make a serious cut-back on my time on the internet ---> way too many out of control Trolls.
Thanks to the invention of the internet and all the Trolls that come with it, I now have a much greater appreciation for literature written by professionals. I'm reading a lot more books now when before I wouldn't even touch one.
I guess there's a silver lining to everything in life.

I have always written a market commentary either for internal or external customer distribution, so I will have to find a new place to organize my thoughts as I find it very useful to hash my ideas out in words before I speak to clients, colleagues or senior management. And the feedback has been great. But it is a big time waster as well and I have been neglecting several more important tasks in the meantime. Being mildly obsessive-compulsive does not help. Its usually all or nothing! Okay, I gotta go. My plane is waiting! Cheers.