Worldwide Fuel Prices

[dalidali]

There is this funny feeling in my stomach that shipping rates will soon go up.

 

As long as fuel costs continue to rise on the world market, so will any motorized means to transport damn near anything go up.

With the seemingly endless conflicts in or very near oil producing areas worldwide, I doubt this scenario will change for the better anytime soon.

 

As a side note to this, the USA now has more reported fossil fuel reserves than the entire Middle East combined.

Hopefully some sanity will grab ahold of those in charge and move forward with waving goodbye to shieks and banana republic despots who have a grip on the world.

[JJReyes]

As a side note to this, the USA now has more reported fossil fuel reserves than the entire Middle East combined. Hopefully some sanity will grab ahold of those in charge and move forward with waving goodbye to shieks and banana republic despots who have a grip on the world.

 

The United States has so much inexpensive natural gas that the Chinese are coming to buy. They are converting their taxis from gasoline to natural gas. I have seen something similar in the Philippines. The taxi driver opens the trunk for baggage and there is a white tank taking up about one fourth of the trunk space.

 

Our petroleum companies import expensive oil from the Middle East. We sell inexpensive natural gas to the Chinese. I don't get it. Can anyone hazard an explanation? 

[Dave Hounddriver]

As long as fuel costs continue to rise on the world market, so will any motorized means to transport damn near anything go up.

 

At the risk of going off topic, I watched a report on CNN where Cathay Pacific had reduced fuel costs from 41% to 39% of its total budget.  While fuel prices do go up, the efficiency of modern transports uses less of it.  If people use that as an excuse they are blowing smoke.

[OnMyWay]

 

As a side note to this, the USA now has more reported fossil fuel reserves than the entire Middle East combined. Hopefully some sanity will grab ahold of those in charge and move forward with waving goodbye to shieks and banana republic despots who have a grip on the world.

 

The United States has so much inexpensive natural gas that the Chinese are coming to buy. They are converting their taxis from gasoline to natural gas. I have seen something similar in the Philippines. The taxi driver opens the trunk for baggage and there is a white tank taking up about one fourth of the trunk space.

 

Our petroleum companies import expensive oil from the Middle East. We sell inexpensive natural gas to the Chinese. I don't get it. Can anyone hazard an explanation? 

 

 

Our natural gas is much cheaper than other global markets because we have a glut within our borders and limited capacity to export it.  There is work underway to build new pipelines and export terminals.

 

Supposedly, we will surpass Saudi in oil production in 2020 and could be energy independent 10 years after that.

 

Many cars in Europe use LNG and gas, and it is a great system.  Long range with two tanks (gas for backup) whie the LNG is much cheaper and cleaner burning.  Some of the big truck manufacturers in the US are introducing new lines of LNG powered trucks, which should help get more LNG filling station across the country.

[Markham]

Many cars in Europe use LNG and gas, and it is a great system. Long range with two tanks (gas for backup) whie the LNG is much cheaper and cleaner burning.

Umm, not quite, Don! I have such a vehicle back in Wales, a Mitsubishi Outlander, part of a shipment Mitsubishi UK had converted to run on dual fuel - unleaded and LPG. LPG is basically Propane whilst LNG is basically Butane - the same gas as in your Bic lighter. Mitusbishi sold these cars at the same price as the single fuelled version but did not pass-on the rather high conversion cost (around £5,000 per vehicle) as that was paid for by a government grant.

[OnMyWay]

 

Many cars in Europe use LNG and gas, and it is a great system. Long range with two tanks (gas for backup) whie the LNG is much cheaper and cleaner burning.

Umm, not quite, Don! I have such a vehicle back in Wales, a Mitsubishi Outlander, part of a shipment Mitsubishi UK had converted to run on dual fuel - unleaded and LPG. LPG is basically Propane whilst LNG is basically Butane - the same gas as in your Bic lighter. Mitusbishi sold these cars at the same price as the single fuelled version but did not pass-on the rather high conversion cost (around £5,000 per vehicle) as that was paid for by a government grant.

 

Yes, I was crossing up LPG with LNG.

 

I believe in the US we have a lot of LPG (propane) filling stations but the LNG are more scarce for the general public, and that is what they hope to expand.  LNG has been somewhat limited to city buses and other fleets.  Is LNG cleaner burning than LPG?

 

I know quite a few people in Netherlands and Germany who have the dual system LPG/Gas and they love it.  You will see the Germans lined up at the autobahn LPG pumps while there is no wait at the gas pump.

[Tukaram (Tim)]

We used compressed natural gas at the County I worked at.  We had to track our fuel consumption and use at least 90% CNG.  So I could basically get one tank of real gas a month.  We were in a network of other agencies and shared the CNG pumps (I could use water dept/bus station/post office etc for fuel).  It was a good thing too.  The mileage is absolute crap!  I would easily burn through 2 tanks a day.  Granted my giant work truck got 9 miles to the gallon of real gas but could run for days on one tank.  When we first started using CNG it was 1/2 the price of gasoline, but after a couple years it caught up to the price of gas.  And still had virtually no power and you could just watch the gauge drop.  We had to use real gas to get up to highway speed.

 

They tried in our police cars as well - that did not last long at all!  Too many engine problems, expensive tanks to maintain, and they had to switch to real gas to chase anyone ha ha.

 

Unless they have made some MAJOR improvements it is not a viable option for most cars.  We quit using about 10 years ago (but still maintain one gas station for the co-op, because some contract issues).    :tiphat:

[sjp52]

 

As a side note to this, the USA now has more reported fossil fuel reserves than the entire Middle East combined. Hopefully some sanity will grab ahold of those in charge and move forward with waving goodbye to shieks and banana republic despots who have a grip on the world.

 

The United States has so much inexpensive natural gas that the Chinese are coming to buy. They are converting their taxis from gasoline to natural gas. I have seen something similar in the Philippines. The taxi driver opens the trunk for baggage and there is a white tank taking up about one fourth of the trunk space.

 

Our petroleum companies import expensive oil from the Middle East. We sell inexpensive natural gas to the Chinese. I don't get it. Can anyone hazard an explanation? 

 

 

Why use up your reserves when you can buy some one elses. There maybe a time in the far away future when the States will be the new Saudi Arabia having most of the oil. I know in Canada we have more oil than any one else ( but a lot of it is hard to get and is not the best quality ( sour crudes ) ). We import sweet crudes from other countries because it is cheaper than refining are sour crude into sweet crude. I worked in a refinery as a Engineer for 30 years and the Unit I worked on turned sour crude into sweet crude. A lot of people didn,t know but investing in oil refinery stocks was a very lucrative deal. Over the years I was averaging 20% returns a year ( not so much since the financial down fall a few years ago ).

[dalidali]

 

As long as fuel costs continue to rise on the world market, so will any motorized means to transport damn near anything go up.

 

At the risk of going off topic, I watched a report on CNN where Cathay Pacific had reduced fuel costs from 41% to 39% of its total budget.  While fuel prices do go up, the efficiency of modern transports uses less of it.  If people use that as an excuse they are blowing smoke.

 

My first flight from the USA to SE Asia was in 2005 on EVA airlines

At that time the round trip ticket cost (economy) from LAX (Los Angeles) to Bangkok was $625 USD.

My most recent trip (2013) to MNL from LAX on China airlines was $1325 USD economy.

 

Almost double the fare in 7 years.

I am pretty confident that this price increase is not due to the cost of labor or the cost of inflight meals.

[robert k]

Natural gas (methane ) can be supercooled to a liquid and that is how it is imported to the east coast of the USA. We still import the natural gas because there is billions of dollars worth of infrastructure tied up with the importing of the gas which is super cheap to import because it's produced in a place where there is no market for the natural gas and it would just be flared off (burned) if we didn't buy it at rock bottom prices.

 

I have only heard of one license to export natural gas from the US and I don't believe they have made a shipment yet.

 

Natural gas can be confusing because it can be made up of several gases, some of which readily compress to liquids, commonly called NGL's, propane, pentane, butane, hexane, others and their iso-  varieties. There are parts of the gas that are liquid without being compressed called condensates or "natural gasoline" or sometimes drip gas. Dry gas is methane. You could carry a heck of a lot more super-cooled methane than you can CNG compressed methane and it wouldn't matter if you needed a larger engine and used twice as much as your CNG set-up because you could carry enough.

 

I think the true future of dry gas as a motor fuel is GTL, gas to liquid which will use cheap methane as feedstock to make liquid fuel, we already have the infrastructure for that at your usual filling station. Dutch Royal Shell is already building a plant to make GTL fuel in Qatar, because there is no practical market for natural gas within reasonable pipeline distance. The last article I read said they expect GTL fuel to be competitive with diesel even if the price of a barrel of oil were to fall to $20 per barrel, I presume they mean $20 US. 

 

There is also the fact that methane can be readily converted to alcohol which the US federal government mandates be added to fuel in the us. The production of corn can't keep up with the demand for alcohol for fuel and animal feed. I think the governemt will not allow methane to be converted to alcohol for fuel because they think methane is a fossil fuel, which it is but methane is also made in great quantities every day, if you don't believe me come over some time and I will make a pot of beans. :) 

Edited August 16, 2013 by robert k