Guardian: rape, murder its just a drop (of oil) away

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some oil
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a drop away
It's just a drop away
War, children, it's just a drop away
It's just a drop away

World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown...

...The market volatility witnessed in recent months has been, to a large extent, the result of imbalance between the available refining capacity and the demand for petroleum products. Until the necessary investments are undertaken in the downstream sector of the industry, volatility is likely to remain a feature of the oil market. OPEC Member Countries, both on their own and in partnership with some international oil companies, have taken the initiative to pursue and invest in downstream projects, both inside and outside their countries. OPEC’s investments in the downstream, are part of its ongoing efforts to ease market volatility and to help prices to moderate toward levels consistent with healthy economic growth, particularly in the developing countries...

It's pretty obvious that nobody is going to "produce oil" when there is no capacity to store or refine it. It doesn't taste good - so you can't eat it, if tankers can't unload, because the refiners can't handle the volume, then the shipping pipeline starts to clog up like Ted Kennedy's arteries...and naturally the "production" facilities back down cuz they got no place to put the shit. This is economics 101.

OPEC, as much as I'd like to bash them, has recognized the actual problem even if the democrats in the US haven't and apparently has put a downstream expansion plan in place. The OPEC plan looks to be fairly aggressive as well given the time it takes to engineer and construct refineries and such.

posted by Purple Avenger at 10:56 AM

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