Walmart Super Tech - has it been discontinued?

[grampi]

It's not the straight that's the problem. Refineries in UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar that produce 20% of the worlds supply of high quality Group III base stocks that are used in most modern low viscosity synthetic motor oils were bombed by Iran in May and are currently out of production. They will not be rebuilt and brought back online for the foreseeable future, either. Not until the hostilities have been resolved. Even then it will take years to get that production capacity back.

It's a simple matter of supply and demand.

Petroleum products are a semi-inelastic class of product meaning it is very difficult for consumers (both industrial and end purchasers) to significantly reduce their consumption. The makes supply side shortfalls quite impactful in terms of price pressure. Economics 101.

So why can't that be produced here?

 

[Patman]

Again, if we produced what need in this country, we wouldn't be having this problem...

You clearly don’t understand how world economics works.

 

[Ronsant]

Again, if we produced what need in this country, we wouldn't be having this problem...

If you do some research, you find that the refineries in the US are not set up to efficiently refine the oil that we pull out of the ground in the US. So ( simplifying here) we sell most of the US sourced oil, and buy the other kind from the Middle East.
Not sure how we ended up in this situation, but “it don’t make no sense”

 

[thunderfog]

You clearly don’t understand how world economics works.

I said that and he responded that apparently we were supplying all our own oil and gasoline 60 years ago a few posts up...

 

[4wd]

A year or two from now - some refinery upgrades will be complete in the US - repairs made elsewhere - and some new bypass pipelines built … These are large/complex projects getting to what we comment on here …

 

[ripcord]

So why can't that be produced here?

A lot of refined base stocks are produced here, but not enough of the newer Group III type. Much of the older refining plants here in the USA were built and set up to make Group II+ and lower base stocks. Many were designed to refine crude from places like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, not for the chemically different shale oil crude that has more recently started being produced here in the states.

The situation is complicated but there is no conspiracy involved except for maybe all the opposition to petroleum development by certain groups in the US.

 

[jghall00]

The situation is complicated but there is no conspiracy involved except for maybe all the opposition to petroleum development by certain groups in the US.

Don't forget, fracking is a relatively new advancement in oil extraction. Up until recently, it wasn't even profitable. Even when McClendon was fraudulently conspiring to keep lease prices down, frackers were still burning cash. A big part of the reason we sourced oil elsewhere is that it was just far cheaper to do so. For anyone that wants a good history of the oil industry and its effects on geopolitics read The Prize by Yergin.

 

[MrkofXcellence]

It also makes us dependent on less secure sources. There are trade-offs. When the less secure source is compromised, the increase in cost and/or scarcity can more than wipe out the savings from open exchange.

It´s not a simple equation, but for strategic commodities and products, like oil and microchips, I fall on the secure side of self sufficiency.

Just my opinion.

That would require American companies to forgo selling their products to those willing to pay the most. I’m not opposed to that necessarily (in the name of national security), but it would be a tough sell to the oligarchs here.

 

[CR94]

Add MAG1 and FVP to the list.
...

No, Mag1 and Providence (Rural King) are from a different (although confusingly similarly named) blender.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

That is a very short-sighted outlook and opinion. If all the other countries in the world were to do this, places like China and Africa could essentially shut the world down. The US can not produce everything they need to be sustainable, it is a world market we live in, like it or not.

It is the truth. Many saw this coming as far back as the 1990s but there was and is not one thing we could or can do about it. All we can do is hang on for the ride now.

 

[fozzdesy2001]

If you do some research, you find that the refineries in the US are not set up to efficiently refine the oil that we pull out of the ground in the US. So ( simplifying here) we sell most of the US sourced oil, and buy the other kind from the Middle East.
Not sure how we ended up in this situation, but “it don’t make no sense”

Interesting U,S Crude stats

Most of the crude oil produced in the United States is refined in U.S. And Supply and Disposition

 

[grampi]

You clearly don’t understand how world economics works.

Apparently it doesn't...

 

[grampi]

If you do some research, you find that the refineries in the US are not set up to efficiently refine the oil that we pull out of the ground in the US. So ( simplifying here) we sell most of the US sourced oil, and buy the other kind from the Middle East.
Not sure how we ended up in this situation, but “it don’t make no sense”

You'd think someone would've realized it's not a good thing to have to rely on other countries for the products we need...

 

[grampi]

I said that and he responded that apparently we were supplying all our own oil and gasoline 60 years ago a few posts up...

You guys sure like to twist what is posted in here. I never said any such thing. I said we weren't having these problems then. That's hardly the same thing...

 

[Patman]

You guys sure like to twist what is posted in here. I never said any such thing. I said we weren't having these problems then. That's hardly the same thing...

Maybe you should stop posting about things that you clearly don’t understand (like anything regarding economics!)