Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 26/9/2005 15:07

refineries, you never know there could still be shortages in the US ?

[briarberry] 26/9/2005 14:47

LONDON (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Iran has recently in no uncertain terms threatened European oil majors with the invalidation of their energy contracts with the country if Iranian relations with the British, French and German governments deteriorate further amid their efforts to curb Iran's nuclear programme, negotiations to which end have not long broken down. Is this just an idle threat, mere posturing by a two bit petroleum state? Or does it presage real trouble ahead?

[briarberry] 26/9/2005 09:15

Oil - Rita, Port Arthur refinery (not much onshore damage from Rita)...

Valero Energy Corp. said it will take two weeks to a month to repair and restart its 255,000-barrel-per-day Port Arthur refinery, which sustained "significant damage to two cooling towers and a flare stack."

[briarberry] 24/9/2005 20:09

Texas refineries seem to have survived, still waiting for news on the rigs, platforms and pipelines. Rita must have hit a few while she was still at full power ?

[briarberry] 22/9/2005 22:26

Rita headed more towards Port Arthur now, there are a couple of refineries there too, they're further inland than Texas City. Plus another one at Beaumont, much further inland.




PARIS (AFX) - Total SA said it has ordered the evacuation of about a dozen of its petrochemical installations in Texas, including a refinery in Port Arthur, a major facility with capacity of 240,000 barrels of oil per day.

[briarberry] 22/9/2005 19:09

worst case scenario...


Texas City - if we did see a direct hit and a 20 ft storm surge, Texas City could be under water, it's only just behind Galveston (this was on the news eariler)

Valero Energy Corp. was among refiners taking precautions Wednesday. Its 243,000-bpd refinery in Texas City lies on lower Galveston Bay, closer to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, making it especially vulnerable to the heavy 13-foot to 18-foot tidal surge that accompanies storms of this magnitude.

BP Plc , which also operates a huge 460,000-bpd refinery at Texas City, confirmed it too is taking steps to secure the plant. The BP Texas City plant turns out about 3% of the nation's gasoline supply.






Baytown - further inland, although not much protection...

Exxon Mobil on Thursday told Texas regulators it was shutting its Baytown, Texas oil refinery which at 557,000 barrels per day is the largest refinery in the United States.








lots of petrochems here - Dear Park - should be ok - far enough inland, i guess

one example - Shell Oil's 340,000-bpd Deer Park refinery.






The Gulf region near Houston accounts for almost half of the nation's petrochemical manufacturing and a third of the nation's petroleum refining. An association representing the petrochemical industry in the channel employs more than 30,000 people and is made up of 125 chemical manufacturers and refineries.

[briarberry] 22/9/2005 12:23

UK manufacturing, still in a slump...


In its monthly industrial trends survey, the Confederation of British
Industry said total orders continued to fall, though the overall order book
balance improved slightly to -27 from -29.

The CBI also said export orders weakened significantly during the month,
falling to their lowest level since January, depressed by a sharp drop in demand
for capital goods, such as machinery and equipment, and by a weak European
market.

[briarberry] 22/9/2005 11:49

Rita could hit the rigs and refineries that katrina missed...

Bloomberg

Texas is home to the biggest concentration of U.S. refineries, accounting for 26 percent of the nation's total capacity. Four refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi, representing 5 percent of U.S. capacity, remain shut because of damages caused by Katrina last month.

``The Houston area is ground zero of the refining industry,'' said Rick Mueller, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Tilburg, the Netherlands. ``If it suffers the scope of damage caused to refineries in Louisiana by Katrina, we could see rationing and queues at the gas pump.''

Shutting Plants

ConocoPhillips, Shell and Valero are slowing or shutting refineries as Rita moves toward the Texas coast. Shell yesterday began shutting down its Deer Park, Texas, refinery, the seventh- largest in the U.S.

ConocoPhillips is shutting its Old Ocean, Texas, refinery, about 50 miles southwest of Houston. BP is pulling some workers from its Texas City refinery and shutting parts of the plant, the nation's fourth largest.

Valero, the largest U.S. refiner, said it is closing its plants in Texas City and Houston, with the shutdowns expected to be completed by midday Thursday local time. The two facilities can process a total of 378,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Texas coastline, including Galveston, because of Rita. Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery, the nation's largest, is located along the Houston Ship Channel inland from Galveston. A spokesman said the company was releasing non-essential personnel from the facility.

`No Slack'

``We didn't have a surplus of refining before Katrina,'' said Larry Goldstein, president of PIRA Energy Group, a New York consultant. ``There is basically no slack left in the system, and you don't have to have a Katrina-type impact to have a devastating impact on the industry right now.''

Katrina and Rita have shut 1.1 million barrels, or 73 percent, of daily crude-oil output in the region, according to a report yesterday from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which manages offshore resources.

`Potentially Catastrophic'

Rita was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, after trading ended yesterday. The storm, packing winds of near 175 mph, was about 570 miles east-southeast of Galveston and moving west at about 9 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 70 miles from the center, the National Hurricane Center said at 10 p.m. Houston time. The storm is ``potentially catastrophic,'' it said.

Rita is the third-most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic, behind Gilbert in 1988 and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, the hurricane center said in an update at 6:50 p.m. Houston time.

[briarberry] 20/9/2005 21:09

Fed Cuts SOMA Growth Rate, FCBs No Show- UPDATE
by Lee Adler, Tuesday September 20 2005

The Fed sent a signal this morning that it has reduced the growth rate of the System Open Market Account. Foreign Central Banks were a virtual no show at the 4 week bill auction, resulting in a big cut in their holdings.

(link below - says paid but it worked without password on a new computer so I guess it might be free)

[briarberry] 20/9/2005 20:43

interesting view on technology...


Analyst Fumiaki Sato at Deutsche Bank in Tokyo warns that "a slowing pace of innovation in semiconductor technology would shake the technology myth at its foundations" and that a full understanding of the consequences by investors would lead to a "correction of share price multiples to reflect the elimination of the growth premium".

"Price earnings ratios in non-tech are 18. In high tech it's 25. If it were simply a cyclical adjustment, stock valuations would not come down as much. Otherwise a 30 percent adjustment would be possible," Sato said at the summit.

"We believe IT investments will decline, and it will affect GDP (gross domestic product)," he added.

When raw horsepower no longer increases, chip makers face the challenge of adding value in different ways to keep consumers buying new equipment.

"Yes, we may hit the 'good enough' phenomenon where the race is going to change," said Henri Richard, global sales and marketing chief at microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices.

[briarberry] 18/9/2005 17:09

if the Fed stops raising, the Dow is likely to be down after a year...


Ned Davis Research studied the historical performance of the Dow Jones industrial average after Fed tightening cycles. While stocks did rally in a big way in 1989 and 1995, the average performance of the Dow in the 12 months after the Fed finishes has been a loss of 3.9 percent, dating back to 1920. In fact, in 9 of the last 16 cases, stocks have lost ground in the next 12 months.

What's important for investors isn't necessarily when the Fed is done tightening - it's why. Is it stopping because inflation is no longer a threat or because the economy is slowing on its own? Or, worse, what if the Fed stops raising rates because the economy is in real trouble?

[briarberry] 17/9/2005 22:15

Four installations owned by Royal Dutch Shell, the largest operator in the gulf, suffered extensive damage. These included the biggest offshore facility in the region, a platform called Mars, which is expected to be out of commission for months. The field produces 150,000 barrels a day (10% of the GofMs output).

[briarberry] 17/9/2005 22:13

2 out of the 4 refineries still closed by Katrina are heavy sour capable

The Energy Department says four oil refineries will be out of commission for months: Chevron's 325,000- barrel-a-day plant in Pascagoula, Miss.; ConocoPhillips's 247,000-barrel-a-day plant in Bell Chase, La.; Exxon Mobil's 187,200-barrel-a-day plant in Chalmette, La.; and Murphy Oil's 120,000-barrel-a-day plant in Meraux, La.


Chevron's 325,000- barrel-a-day plant in Pascagoula, Miss. The Pascagoula Refinery is Chevron Products Company's largest and most complex refinery. In 1983, the refinery expanded its crude oil processing capabilities to process and treat low-grade heavier, sour, foreign crude oil. The $1.3 billion Pascagoula Residuum Conversion Project expansion allows the refinery to make gasoline and other light products from the heaviest asphalt-like portion of crude oil.


Exxon Mobil's 187,200-barrel-a-day plant in Chalmette, La. The Chalmette refinery, which is owned jointly by ExxonMobil and PDVSA, imports heavy Mexican crude oil (Maya crude oil) and heavy Venezuelan crude. Most of the Venezuelan crude oil used in the United States is heavy, sour quality crude oil.


ConocoPhillips's 247,000-barrel-a-day plant in Bell Chase, La. Refines crude from rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, so I guess it's a light and sweet refinery.


Murphy Oil's 120,000-barrel-a-day plant in Meraux, La. Imports crude oils in the intermediate to light range (low to mid 30 degree API range).

[briarberry] 17/9/2005 22:11

Western refineries spurning sulphurous Saudi oil

By Carl Mortished, International Business Editor

SAUDI ARABIA is struggling to sell its crude oil despite record fuel prices and calls on the Kingdom to bring further supplies to the market.

Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, has been forced to offer ever-greater discounts to tempt refiners to buy its product, which is shunned for its high sulphur content.

Few refineries are able to convert more of the heavy sulphurous "sour" crudes into petrol and most of those are in the United States. The damage caused by Hurricane Katrina has forced refiners to turn to light North Sea and US crude blends which are already in diminishing supply.





The largest number of refineries in the United States can process light, sweet crude oils, while only the small fraction of refineries that have extensive desulfurization and bottoms-conversion units can use heavy, high sulfur crude oils such as that produced in Venezuela. Refineries that normally run intermediate sour crude oil could run a small quantity of heavy sour crude if they could blend it with light sweet crude oil, but if light sweet crude oil is in short supply, then that option is not available. When a heavy sour production source is disrupted, refiners can run a lighter mix of crude oils. While refineries using heavy Venezuelan crude oils theoretically can use some lighter crude oils from areas like West Africa, their refineries are designed to run most economically with the heavier crude oils.





Over half of the world's oil supply is heavy sour

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is two-thirds sour crude and one-third sweet crude.

[briarberry] 17/9/2005 15:18

Off Topic... wow look at this...


Semisub Set Adrift By Katrina Wreaks Havoc in Mobile

Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - When Katrina blew into Mobile on Monday morning, it set the PEMEX semisub PSS Chemul adrift up the Mobile River. The 13,0000 ton vessel was undergoing renovataions at the Bender Shipyard when it floated off of its dry dock and ultimately crashed into a $70 million bridge 1.5 miles up river.

The key Alabama bridge, the Cochrane-Africatown USA Bridge, remained closed after being struck by the the PSS Chemul

The top of the Chemul reportedly struck a side of the bridge and vessel pivoted into the bridge, becoming lodged.

[briarberry] 17/9/2005 13:21

The Fed meets this Tuesday, not sure what they'll do this time...



The problem for Fed officials is that the data so far provide no conclusive evidence about the full economic impact of Katrina and the energy price shock.

If the impact on growth is small, a decision to keep interest rates low could aggravate inflation. If high energy prices pinch spending and shatter confidence, higher interest rates could add to the problem.

But as one analyst pointed out, there is nothing the Federal Reserve can do to speed the repair of oil refineries along the Gulf of Mexico or to accelerate job creation for people evacuated from New Orleans.

[briarberry] 16/9/2005 23:03

satalite images of oil slicks, so it's not all onshore then...


Platforms Leaking for Over a Week - 9/2/2005

Detail from a Radarsat-1 satellite radar image acquired on September 2, 2005, that shows oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Katrina. Slicks are emanating from three platforms in the area shown here. An image taken of the same area a week later (9/9/05) shows they are still leaking. -- Approximately 2,144 platforms and 15,366 miles of seafloor pipeline experienced hurricane-force winds; an additional 2600 platforms and 12,470 miles of seafloor pipeline were exposed to tropical storm-force winds. Oil slicks are dark patches; oil platforms are visible as bright dots. Original TIFF file is 200dpi @ 10"x7.5".

[briarberry] 11/9/2005 20:13

The IEA has revised down its anticipated demand for oil by some 240,000 barrels per day to 1.35m barrels, partly due to Katrina but also to lower-than-expected demand from China.

But it warned this may only be a temporary slowdown, with demand still projected to rise to 1.77m barrels per day next year.

[briarberry] 11/9/2005 19:29

Oil, I guess they're trying to avoid any sort of panic...


The Financial Times reports that the US and Europe are releasing more emergency crude oil than refineries in the Gulf of Mexico can handle, reinforcing suspicions that governments are using the crisis triggered by Hurricane Katrina to cap record oil prices.

US refineries will on Friday begin to bid for the 30m barrels of crude oil that the US government is releasing from the its emergency reserves but, with many refineries disabled, analysts say the additional supply may not be needed.

Data released on Thursday suggested that, while petrol is in short supply, oil companies still have plenty of crude in their inventories. The companies' stocks fell 6.45m barrels last week, significantly less than the 13.6m barrels of production capacity lost to the hurricane suggesting that the shortfall did not warrant the scale of the governments' responses.

President George W. Bush has insisted that the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which holds nearly 700m barrels of crude oil, will release supplies to relieve shortages, not to depress prices.

Last Friday, the International Energy Agency, the industrial countries' oil watchdog, announced a 2m-barrels-a-day emergency release for the next 30 days. That total of 60m barrels includes the 30m barrels from the US's SPR. The FT says that Société Générale, the Paris-based bank, estimates that the emergency stocks released more than cover last week's loss of crude production and the continuing losses expected over the next 40 days.

Frédéric Lasserre, the bank's chief oil analyst, said the emergency stocks of crude released covered 154 per cent of the lost production. The excess oil comes on top of commercial crude inventories in the US that are well above 2004 levels and the average over the past five years. But Mr Lasserre said emergency stockpiles of petrol released by Europe only covered half the loss caused by Hurricane Katrina.

[briarberry] 11/9/2005 18:58

US refinery capacity & Katrina - summary...


The New York Times - By JAD MOUAWAD - September 11, 2005

The events of the last two weeks have demonstrated how close to the edge the country's refining system had been operating, even before the storm. Because the last American refinery was built nearly 30 years ago - with only a single new one now in the works - the problem is unlikely to disappear quickly.

Currently, four major refineries, owned by Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Murphy Oil, are either flooded or without power, and are likely to be out of commission for several weeks, perhaps months. Together, these refine 880,000 barrels a day, or 5 percent of domestic capacity. "It's very significant," said Colm McDermott, an oil analyst at John S. Herold Inc. The loss is equal to 1 percent of the world's refining capacity. "It's a global market and that's certainly enough to have an impact on a global level."

The most damage offshore was sustained by Royal Dutch Shell, which said Friday that its production, usually about 450,000 barrels a day, would be down by 40 percent through the end of the year.

For the four damaged refineries - three are in the vicinity of New Orleans, and the fourth is in Pascagoula, Miss. - restarting will involve a much longer process. First, power must be restored. Once that happens, generators, pumps and other electrical equipment flooded by brackish water will need to be dried out. Removing salt sediments will add to the ordeal. Then the operators must check that none of their main systems have suffered any structural damage before firing them back up.

So far, none of the refineries have provided an estimate of how long all that will take. In its latest report, Chevron, whose 325,000 barrels-a-day refinery is the largest of the four, said "it will be days before a full estimate of damage is known or when operations can be safely brought back online."

Most Americans now pay more than $3 a gallon for gasoline - matching inflation-adjusted highs reached after the Iranian revolution in the late 1970's and early 1980's and the equivalent, on a per-barrel basis, to $126

"If we lose three or four refiners for two or three months, that shortfall is going to be very difficult to make up," said William E. Greehey, the chief executive of Valero, the nation's largest independent refiner. "I don't know how anyone can blame it on us when we've just had the worst natural disaster in the United States' history."

The refining outages prompted an international response from industrialized nations to send emergency stocks of oil and gasoline to the United States to plug the shortfall.

But that is only a temporary solution to a crisis that has been waiting to erupt for years.

Since the 1980's, the number of refiners in the United States has been cut in half. From a peak of 324 in 1981, the industry has shrunk to 149 as the smaller, less efficient and less profitable operators once protected by price controls closed, leaving mostly larger companies in place.

Refining capacity has fallen about 10 percent, to 17 million barrels a day, while oil consumption rose by 33 percent over the same 24-year period, to 20.8 million barrels a day.

Meanwhile, refiners have been increasing their skill in turning crude into useful products; efficiency improved by 27 percent between 1981 and 2004. Still, the difference must be made up by direct imports of refined products, with gasoline imports now at 1 million barrels a day.

As their numbers dwindled, most remaining refiners expanded their plants and added equipment to process more oil. Many refiners now typically run at 95 percent of capacity, a level that is dangerously high and that has led to a growing number of accidents in recent years.

Traditionally, the profit margin for refineries has averaged about 6 percent, a rate of return too low to encourage much new investment.

Another issue that has slowed expansion, refiners said, was the cost of complying with environmental regulations set in the 1990's under the Clean Air Act.

[briarberry] 10/9/2005 18:04

the FT house price index, 1.7% yearly


The FT house-price index combines the latest data on all of the properties sold in July and August recorded at the Land Registry with a statistical model to provide greater timeliness.

Without the adjustment, the FT house price index shows average prices paid in the housing market had only risen by 1.7 per cent in the 12 months to August.

Unlike the Nationwide or Halifax indices, it is based on the whole market rather than a sample of the properties sold with a mortgage.