North American Fuel Shortage Reports

[DantesPeak]

Prices at the pump rose 10 cents a gallon on average in the state of Oklahoma just today alone. There have been informal reports of wholesalers running out of supplies.

Anybody in OK or adjacent states seeing any stations with no gasoline?

Gas prices hit record high
Last Update: May 18, 2007 3:45 PM
(TULSA, Okla.) May 18 - Filling up your tank of gas this weekend will cost you more than the rest of the country!
Oklahoma usually pays less, but not now. According to the AAA, the nationwide average for regular gas is $3.12. In Tulsa, it’s $3.19.
Filling up the tank has become less of an everyday errand for some drivers. It's now become a painful experience watching the pump roll on and on.
Some drivers say they have to fill up two to three times a week, costing them several hundred dollars a month.

Fox 23 News

[shortonoil]

DantesPeak said:

Anybody in OK or adjacent states seeing any stations with no gasoline?

Gas prices here in VA have jumped 13 cents in 3 days, but no shortages yet from what I’ve seen. I’ll be surprised if my prediction of $3.60+ by the end of the month doesn’t come true.

[Eli]

I'm in OKlahoma and I can tell you I haven't seen any places without gas yet the pricing did jump instantly though. On Thursday when we had the gas wholesale run up, the price at the pump went up 10 cents that day.

Also all the Shell stations have gas 3.29 instead of 3.19 like everyone else.

[lawnchair]

Kansas (myself) and Oklahoma both up another 10 cents today, according to the unofficial gasbuddy.com reporting. Both are generally below national average, not 15 to 20 cents above. This is interesting to me because both states are still oil producers/exporters, and both have more than their share of refineries (even with Wynnewood out of service). Does the "minimum level in pipeline" issue come into play here?

No shortages yet, although three oft-cheap indie gas stations have died in the last two months.

[DantesPeak]

Apparently no shortage in the Midwest, but supplies are "frighteningly low":

Posted May 19, 2007
Gallon of unleaded gas spikes to $3.45, an all-time high in Oshkosh
By Doug Zellmer of The Northwestern
Tight gas supplies have put a record high squeeze on prices in Oshkosh.
A gallon of unleaded regular climbed to $3.45 — an all-time high in the city after many service stations raised the price about mid-morning on Friday.
The $3.45 (rounded to the nearest penny) for a gallon of unleaded regular shattered the former high of $3.30 set May 11, 2007 and Sept. 2, 2005.
Pam Moen of AAA Wisconsin said the reason behind the 15-cent a gallon increase on Friday is extremely tight gas supplies in the Midwest.
"I've seen analysts describe them being at frighteningly low levels," Moen said. "The tight supply is particularly acute here in the Midwest and it's due to a number of outages at refineries that serve the Midwest. A number of refineries that supply refined gas to our region are either shutdown or running reduced production."

Oshkosh Northwestern

[cccmachine]

Memphis

2 Shell stations I passed are out

BP, Exxon and the rest still pumping.

$2.96-$3.09 reg

What gives with Shell running out?

[Troyboy1208]

Two Chevron stations are out of gas here. Some weeks they have gas other times they dont. Usually they are 5 cents or so more expensive than other gas stations

[DantesPeak]

Pickens sees shortages ahead:

His outlook for U.S. energy continues to be dim, particularly on gasoline. A recent spate of refinery problems has led to climbing prices, but drivers have not significantly changed their habits.
May 20, 2007, 10:23AM Pickens loves 'to cause things to happen' "I can't help but believe it will get worse as we go into summer," Pickens said. "I think we will see shortages of gas at places where they just don't have the capacity."
Pickens is hoping for high gas prices, but not because it will line his pockets. He recently met with a congressman who told him he wanted to see gas prices at $1.50 per gallon because that's what the public wants. "But a lot of people want something that may not be good for them," Pickens said. "A low price just sends a false message to the consumer that there's plenty of gasoline, so have at it. The only way you're going to kill demand is to let the price run up."

Chron

[DantesPeak]

Gas Shortages At Area Stations
Written by 9NEWS NOW
Created:5/21/2007 7:04:28 PMLast Updated:5/22/2007 8:00:07 AM
(WUSA)- 9NEWS NOW has discovered spot shortages at area gas stations as Washingtonians prepare for the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend, and the driving that so often accompanies the holiday.
Although seemingly not widespread, some service stations in both Virginia and Maryland were pitting up handmade signs telling potential customers there was no regular grade gasoline to be had, ay any price. in most cases, Nine News Now was told the outages were temporary and that new product was on the way.
The government's official tracking agency for nationwide gasoline prices, The Energy Information Administration, released on Monday afternoon new survey of gasoline prices. It shows a nationwide average per gallon price for regular grade gasoline 0f $3.21 a gallon. That is 11.5 cents higher than a week ago and 32.6 cents higher than a year ago.
"We really are in uncharted territory as far as the real price of gasoline" says Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

WUSA 9 News Now

[DantesPeak]

May 21, 2007 6:23 pm US/Mountain
Many Gas Stations Running Out Of Premium Gasoline
(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY Gas prices have hit an all time high across the country and that has motorists here in Utah looking for the lowest prices. We discovered that might be hard to come by.
The Costco in Salt Lake City is out of premium fuel. Not only is the price for premium gas sky-rocketing. Now it’s getting hard to find.
A sign at the Sandy Costco reads “due to severely restricted supply in the Utah market, Costco is unable to offer premium fuel”
Costco says one of their suppliers, a tesoro refinery here in salt lake, wasn’t providing enough premium fuel.
“They were having difficulty getting the blending components necessary to make premium fuel, and I believe that’s still the issue,” says Jeff Cole, Vice President of Costco Gas.

KUTV

[Grimnir]

As long as there's enough gasoline out there for the first world, won't it simply outbid the third and export its shortages? I can see the price going high enough to force the (foreign and domestic) poor out of the market, and I can see sporadic short-term shortages due to blips in the supply chain, but actually running out?

[DantesPeak]

As long as there's enough gasoline out there for the first world, won't it simply outbid the third and export its shortages? I can see the price going high enough to force the (foreign and domestic) poor out of the market, and I can see sporadic short-term shortages due to blips in the supply chain, but actually running out?

Assuming a free market, and an unlimted demand for US dollars you may be about right. About because shipping costs of sending gasoline to the US may exceed profits earned by shippers.

However the world's oil and product mrkets are not entirely open, so product may be allocated by other means - such as saving it for the country making the products.

[EndOfGrowth]

“They were having difficulty getting the blending components necessary to make premium fuel, and I believe that’s still the issue,” says Jeff Cole, Vice President of Costco Gas.

Hi Dantes

Do you think this has anything to do with the decreasing quality of crude imports, could it be that the refiners are struggling to process the heavier crude and are having to develop additives or modify equipment to facilitate refining oil into finished products?

[DantesPeak]

“They were having difficulty getting the blending components necessary to make premium fuel, and I believe that’s still the issue,” says Jeff Cole, Vice President of Costco Gas.

Hi Dantes
Do you think this has anything to do with the decreasing quality of crude imports, could it be that the refiners are struggling to process the heavier crude and are having to develop additives or modify equipment to facilitate refining oil into finished products?

Yes, very much so.

The refiners problem started as early as 2004, when the quality of crude imports started dropping. Most likely they were also taken off guard by Hurricane Kartina. In addition to some taking a severe hit direct hit from Katrina, others were forced to work overtime.

Whether intentional or not, refiners pushed beyond the limits of processing the diminished quality of crude. I'm sure they are spending a great deal to adjust, but the adjustments are not as fast as the quality change demanded (again partly because the government demanded that work refineries overtime).

[Leanan]

Not exactly about shortages, but about capacity limits:
Pipeline company to ration space

Colonial Pipeline Co., the world's largest operator of petroleum-product pipelines, will ration space on a gasoline line running north of Collins, Miss., to Greensboro, N.C., starting June 3.
An allocation was imposed for shipments in the cycle because orders exceeded Colonial's ability to deliver on schedule, the company said.
"This is really quite amazing," said Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates, a consulting company in Houston. It means that Gulf Coast refiners are producing more gasoline "than Colonial pipeline has capacity to pump, and they pump about 1.4 million barrels per day."

And BP has declared force majeure at its Whiting refinery:

BP has declared a "force majeure" on Canadian crude supply to its Whiting, Ind., plant, Dow Jones Newswires reported Friday -- meaning that the company cannot meet its contract requirements to purchase oil from Canadian suppliers to the refinery.

[MD]

They'll start rolling the tankers . . . if they can find them. Let's see: at about 10,000 gallons per load you'll need 100 trucks for a million gallons. It's a 700 mile trip one way, so that means 12 hrs up, 10 rest, and 12 back. It's a 34 hour cycle unless you team drive, which get's expensive. $3000 roughly per round trip, total transport cost. with 100 trucks cycling constantly you can move 860,000 gallons (not barrels) per day at $300,000...or $.35 per gallon.

Not sure what rail costs, or even if gasoline is routinely moved via rail car. Nor do I have any idea what it costs to move via pipeline, except that it is obviously the cheapest once you get past installation.

[shortonoil]

It means that Gulf Coast refiners are producing more gasoline "than Colonial pipeline has capacity to pump, and they pump about 1.4 million barrels per day."

According to EIA data, Gulf refineries haven’t significantly increased their production; this is obviously not about refineries producing more gasoline than Colonial can pump. This is about the US changing its import sources, a lot of the European imports, that came into the US, came through eastern ports; our new sources are coming in through the Gulf. It is probably the Caribbean and Virgin Island refineries that are keeping us going.

[AirlinePilot]

My bet, and this is just conjecture, is that its coming from the large storage in the Carribean. Im not 100% positive but I thought I have seen here that SA and some other large producers have very big storage throughout the Carribean.

[shortonoil]

AirlinePilot said:

Im not 100% positive but I thought I have seen here that SA and some other large producers have very big storage throughout the Carribean.

I’ve also heard similar conjecture from various sources, but none of them were credible enough to quote. The only problem that I have with this, is that, gasoline is difficult to store in large quantities for extended periods. Maybe rotating the stock would work, I don’t know? Does anyone else here have any information on the subject of Caribbean storage.