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The headline about there only being 25 days of diesel fuel sitting in tanks ready to use is making the rounds.
Since that was two days ago, does that mean there's only 23 days left today?
I'm not finding mention that the supplies have gotten lower, it's as if...
They're still making it!
One article makes passing mention that diesel production is higher at the moment than is normal. Production is up when oil is pushing record prices too.
If that's true then the problem is demand is higher than normal, not that supplies are lower than normal.
I'm not seeing any article mentioning the 25 day supply that even speculates as to why we're using more diesel than normal. So much more than normal that above normal production isn't keeping up with demand.
One reason is that the economy might be righting itself.
The places panicking about the 25 day supply are the kind of places that don't want to see that right before the midterms because a recovering economy means fewer Republican votes.
Yes, Virginia, the conservative press has an agenda too.
But it could be as simple as more goods being hauled by trucks because railway transportation and river transportation has been disrupted.
Rail by the owners and the unions in unrelated bullshit.
River by record low water levels.
Trains and barges use less fuel than trucks.
More consumption means more demand.
The big question isn't how many days supply there is, but is demand outstripping supply to the point where there will eventually be no fuel at some outlets.
The articles hint at that, but don't actually say it. They aren't showing numbers. They aren't comparing X barrels consumption vs Y barrels supply vs Z barrels production.
They do compare the days of supply to other time periods. Like 1951 when our economy was so much smaller, but they don't really explain that. You had to know that already and panic because our current economy will run through 1951's production in hours!
But... We're not using 1951 production in supply or production. Though we might be better off if we had 1951's rail system and managers.
Which brings me to the point.
Use your critical thinking on every news source. Make no exceptions.
Trust no one and keep your blaster handy, Troubleshooter.
Re-posting, for some reason using Google dumps into a loop that goes nowhere and anonymouse is not me.
ReplyDeleteI run 2 diesel cars and currently the price of same is anywhere from $1.30 to $1.50 higher than regular which is insane. Granted I get near 40 MPG so the cost per mile for my car and wife's CRV are almost identical at the moment where diesel used to be far cheaper to operate.
Used to be diesel was below Regular for years, that started to change when the (spit) EPA pushed everyone to ultra low sulfur diesel and has been getting worse with time. Am hoping sanity returns soon as the cost of EVERYTHING goes up with price of diesel, no other options as commerce, farming, long haul, trains and ships, even the tugs pushing barges, use diesel. Drill baby, drill and pipelines and more pipelines are the solution, only not with this bunch of clowns.
Similarly, when I saw those "25 days supply!!!!" stories I thought, "how many days is the usual amount?" The one or two I bothered to look at didn't say. I stopped reading them.
ReplyDeletePer EIA website a year ago the US had a 30 day supply of distillate. Stocks are down from ~160 to ~105 million barrels. Link: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/distillate.php
ReplyDeleteSigned: Tango Oscar Delta