I've noticed on NPR radio that they are beginning to mention the price of a barrel of oil along with the DOW/Jones average when they give their superficial blurb about the day's news. Could it be that the seriousness of oil price is starting to sink-in with the general public?

I still think NPR is a bunch of cowards for not doing more to explore Peak Oil. Talk about important news! Are they afraid of losing funding from the government, industry, or both if they broach this taboo?

As to the price of a barrel of oil later this year, what will heating oil hoarding do to price? Anyone have some past stats?

-Ian C.

Who'll save the wee turtles?!? - Groundskeeper Willie

The price of gas is often lower in the winter, since summer is "driving season." But the need for heating oil in the northern hemisphere keeps prices for oil up.

Check out this graph:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chron.html

Winter falls on the year tick marks (obviously, since Jan. 1 is in midwinter). There are more commonly price spikes in winter than price drops.

I think we reached peak. Gas prices are going up, up, up. The refineries are still producing gas when they should be making a transition to make heating oil. There is not going to be enough heating oil for this winter. This is going to drive light crude up to $100 a barrel by Thanksgiving and it will stay there all winter because of the heating oil shortage. Gas prices will stay below $3 for the winter but come spring and summer $4+ will be likely.

Welcome to Peak Oil.

There is absolutely no spare capacity for sweet crude.
In fourth quarter, we will have an oil shortage and spare capacity is useless because we also have a refinery shortage.

The lack of sweet crude and the abundance of revenue made by state oil companies mean these state enterprises from Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia will not sell more crude oil if prices fall. Saudi Arabia already placed an 8 dollar minus WTI price floor and refused to budge despite no takers for such high price for sour crude. Why Saudi refuse to sell cheaper, because they are flushed with cash and don't know what to do with all that new cash that is unaccounted for in the budget. They rather keep their oil than sell it at lower prices.

Also, Saud Aramco wants to maintain same margins as last year, even though they are going to need to spend more $$$ to maintain production and also increase production by 2mbpd by the end of decade. In order to do this, they will need oil prices in the 50's for their basket of crude at the minimum.

I don't expect prices to drop significantly, unless we see more oil from Caspian and Africa. Those places are still desperate for more money. Not even Russia is so aggressive as they have budget surpluses now.

How do you figure that?

Historically, August is not the time to switch.
Heating oil market doesn't heat up until a couple of more months, so September is the earliest. After labor's day is the earliest, but most likely in mid October.

Oilprices are currently back at 65.92

Hooray! It was all just a bad dream. There's no peak-oil! Everything will be just fine! (/short term vision)

66.55 last time i checked. Maybe it'll go to 70 after tomorrows report?

From what I am seeing tomorrow's report will be mix.
My guess is
Crude build will be more than expected.
Gasoline will decrease as expected.
Distillates will be lower than expected.

Let me know how accurate I am.

Here is my question when the report tomorrow sites crude build does that number include sour crude as well?

I think that it does. And what has been happening of late is that yes crude stocks have been building but it is of the heavy sour type that is not easily used right now. The light sweet crude is in short supply but the report masks that fact.

We could even see a large jump in crude stockpiles as refiners have had their sour heavy capacity significantly affected by all the refinery fires.

I'm far from an expert but it looks like the supply report doesn't differentiate between the grades of oil. There is also the issue of how much sulfer does it take for sweet to be labelled as sour?

I went digging for info about this. See my finds here:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic10438.html

Crude oil reports from EIA are just whatever is in stock by oil companies. Oil companies should be buying oil that matches their refinery ability.

Acute sweet crude shortage will show up not by grade of crude in stock, but by seeing refineries reporting less capacity usage even though they don't have any maintenance or other issues.

EIA does provide the raw data of the oil stocks if you are interested.

Excess heavy and/or sour crude also shows up as increases in the difference between the price of light, sweet and heavy/sour crude. As heavy/sour crude supply exceeds demand the price drops causing the price spread ("crude spreads") to increase.

That is true in a perfect market, but now there is a big discrepancy between Saudi sour versus other heavy or sour crude. Saudi's have instituted a price floor for their sour crude. They target $8 differential to WTI. They will only drop below that if they need the revenue it seems.