Before moving onto the U.S. Oil import data...
As many of you know I am an avid gardener (one of my best friends calls me a "rabid gardener") Weeds are the bane of gardening. Last year I had a pretty good harvest, but in the end the weeds got the better of me and by the end of September this 80' by 180' garden plot was choked with weeds and garden plants that had been picked over. I did not relish coming back to that in the Spring... So I met another gardener/small holder on line... and she said she never had a problem with weeds in her half acre garden anymore because she kept pigs in the garden over the winter. SO..... What did I have to lose? (BTW... within 1 year a pig will weigh over 400 lbs; our Wilber is roughly 450. Some people don't eat meat or do not eat pork for religious reasons. That does not mean one cannot employ a pig to eat all of the roots and weed seeds in your garden).
To make a long story short, we employed "Wilber" to work the garden over the winter...
click to enlarge
As you can see it looks like it has been plowed and tilled by a tractor.
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Oil imports into the U.S., for the period 1/1/2010 - 3/12/2010 show a decline of just over 7% when compared to the same period in 2009 (last 4 weeks average was down 7.7%).
Right on schedule.
7 comments:
Both the oil supply and the oil demand have been dropping for two years (after 25 years of oil demand & supply rising). With less demand (a la recession), and nowhere to put the oil even if it had been imported (oil stocks are already at all time highs), I still don't see a problem here .. so far.
This above is solely for the U.S., I mean.
G:
I love our pig-a-rator. Though in our climate (on the shores of Lake Champlain), our pig-a-rator works the fall and spring-winters off. And even though we don't eat pork, the balance they provide truly diversifies our farm.
Best regards.
Lenny D.
The fact that prices keep climbing while our demand is dropping indicates that the US isn't driving the price, China is. It could be speculation, but if not, it says that China's increased demand is more than what we aren't using.
Natural gas has fallen almost to $4/million BTUs. Cheap, plentiful energy. :)
Crude is down today (the 19th) so far. Funny how the average price of gasoline in Chicago has been bumping up against that average $3/gallon ceiling multiple times since last June. Every time it tries to get over $3 a gallon average in Chicago, it gets slammed down by the dropped oil per barrel price -- this has been going on for 9 months. The price per barrel for oil is around $75-83 when this happens. Oil price goes too far up, and the economy slaps it back down again. Economic demand drops in tandem with rising oil prices. $130/barrel for oil? The economy says no way! :)
Happy news on BP from the Agora people ...
03/19/10 Stockholm, Sweden – London-based BP (NYSE:BP), the giant international oil and gas company, is considered one of the most undervalued of the “Big Oil” set by Agora Financial commodities expert Byron W. King. In his opinion, it was not well managed for many years in the 2000s, and even so far back as into the 1990s. However, he’s seen a lot of intriguing news of late which he discusses in a recent update.
Here is King’s latest take on BP:
“Under new management with CEO Tony Hayward, in the past 18 months, BP has been playing a strong game of catch-up. And doing it all while paying out a nice, solid dividend that’s currently yielding a 5.9% return.
“In the past week, BP announced an agreement to buy a large chunk of oil business from Devon. BP will pay Devon $7 billion for hydrocarbon assets in Brazil, Azerbaijan and the Gulf of Mexico. Plus, BP and Devon will form a joint venture to develop an oil sands project in Alberta.
“BP’s Tony Hayward stated that the Devon deal gives BP ’significant additional long-term growth potential with an emphasis on high-margin oil.’ Indeed, the Brazilian asset alone will give BP strong interests in the prolific Campos Basin. This includes three discoveries — Xerelete, pre-salt Wahoo and Itaipu — and the already producing Polvo field.
“Add to this the fact that the Devon concessions offshore Brazil cover much more of that deep pre-salt play. There’s more out there to find, and BP is very strong in deep earth exploration, based on a powerful learning curve in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, BP may be paying under $1 per barrel for future oil reserves.
“Meanwhile, the Azerbaijan deal with Devon also opens doors to BP, which is traditionally strong in the Middle East. Note that BP is also one of the leaders in rebuilding the Iraqi oil industry. So at the very least, BP is locking up access to future flows of Middle Eastern crude oil. And with rising energy prices (have you noticed?), BP is holding a stronger and stronger hand.
“The bottom line is that just with the Devon deal, BP has acquired a terrific new set of oil assets, spanning three continents. It’s immensely foresighted, and great for the long-term prospects of BP.
“All that, and almost lost in the noise was the announcement that BP is putting the finishing touches on a $100 million facility that will process commercial volumes of heavy oil from Alaska’s North Slope.
“The new BP facility, at the Milne Point field, is finally ready to go. It’s due to begin continuous operations in May. It’ll initially process oil from four wells that will tap the vast but elusive layer of heavy oil above the North Slope’s conventional oil reserves. The future potential of this heavy oil play is in the billions of barrels. It’s just immense.”
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