I was in Dallas at the time, having fled Harvey. Longest line I’d ever seen at a Costco gas station. I had thought though that some of the problems Dallas faced weren’t so much from panic buying, though there was a lot of that, but an inability to replenish stock due to the transportation outages from flooding. In any event, it went away after a day or two, IIRC.
AIUI, crude production in the US can be easily raised from its current level. Refining capacity, OTOH, I thought was near peak.
It is a very large facility that was set on fire. Is there more information about the extent of the damage?
First reports said that it would take two years to repair the damage. And that’s assuming no more damage occurs over that time. Your filling up today or next week won’t matter a bit in the long run.
If this remains true, then the global chain will wind up shifting. The politically important question is whether we can use this as a wedge to drive alternative energy sources because the environmental dotards in the administration claim that we have to pump more fossil fuels out of the ground.
Higher gas prices will also make the car manufacturers who agreed to abide with California’s regulations look even more intelligent and far-seeing than the administration who canned the Obama era CAFE rules and is looking into an anti-trust challenge.
Hey, if the planet has any luck at all, another drone will knock out the other half of Saudi production.
Nothing to report from here. No smoke, no sheets of flame. No convoys of fire engines. I am about 35 miles from all this.
Oddly this is not ever a subject of water cooler talk at the office.
Morons, all of them. Anyone with any sense filled up the Friday before, or that Monday (IIRC it hit Houston on a Saturday or Sunday), and then laughed at those idiots waiting in gas lines. Because you KNOW a hurricane hitting Houston is going to cause gas prices to rise, even without dumb-ass panic buying.
Total nonsense. If Trump actually wanted war with Iran, there’s no way in the world he would have just fired the one government official who above all others was trying to start such a war – i.e., John Bolton.
Yes, we’re surrounded by idiots who can’t think more than a few hours into the future. Googling “baby boomer retirement” will make this even more apparent. I enjoyed laughing at them, as I do at all the unaffected (unhurt, no damage) who scurry around like dismayed children when the shelves/tanks/trucks are suddenly empty. Gosh! A hurricane hit the coast! No one saw that coming, right?
I believe it is morally and ethically OK to load up a trailer of $400 generators, drive to Florida in the aftermath of a big storm, and sell them for $2000 each. I have zero problem with this, since those needing them knew where they lived and had plenty of time to prepare. However, many of my fellow citizens disagree, and as I understand it, I (or Home Depot) might be charged with a crime for this.
Saudis supply 10% of the world’s oil - and now they would supply about 5% of it. I would think other suppliers will promptly step up to the plate. In any case the US economy has plenty of reserve oil, and alternative suppliers. To make a noticeable difference to the US economy the reduction in oil supply needs to be extremely drastic and prolonged.
While fossil fuels accounts for about two-thirds of US electrical energy production, almost all of that made up of either natural gas or coal. Oil is less than 1%.
FWIW. We live in Abqaiq for 11 years. No one we know still lives there. All aged out. But we received an email from some from a retired safety engineer from the other strike. He just retired so knows people still there. They are all safe but the damage he estimates will take about two years to repair.
Interesting that conventional, non-stealthy cruise missiles were able to be launched, transit Iraqi, Kuwaiti. and KSA airspace, and not be interdicted. Good thing it was only explosives being carried by those missiles.
Also, per this tweet, half of the 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Fleet are being activated, on a ‘turbo’ basis. I have read of a merchant sailor immediate muster drill being conducted either today or yesterday. It may not actually be a drill.
These are ships used to convey large amounts of materiel, ordnance, and other supplies from the US to local logistical sites. IOW, if you need to move an army, these are the boats you use move all of the stuff that can’t economically be flown to the area. 40 of those ships were activated for OIF in 2003.
Carriers get moved in order to conduct airstrikes. These ships are what you use when you want to invade.
As for gas prices, the station near my work where I usually fill up is about 25¢/gallon higher today than mid last week. This is purely profit-taking as there hasn’t been time for the more expensive crude to have been processed yet. Of course, when the price of crude drops, it takes lots longer for that decrease to show up at the pump.
And remember back when gas was lots more expensive and a fuel surcharge was tacked on to everything delivered by truck? I’m pretty sure none of those prices came down afterwards. It’s not just the oil companies reaping profits from reduced production.