let's talk crude

it's a crude crude world

crude and unusual punishment

crude intentions

.... I was trying to come up with a clever play on words (that has not been used ad nauseam) and that's about all I've got folks.  Regardless, let's talk crude!  I mean crude oil.  This is a PG blog.  There's a little piece in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning about crude oil and it hit me, I don't really know the details of what a barrel contains when people refer to a 'barrel of crude oil'.  Sacre bleu!  Check it out: 

A barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons while the refining process actually increases the volume by about 2 gallons making 44 gallons of end products as seen above.  I think the main interesting things to remember are 1) a barrel of crude oil gives us about 20 gallons of gasoline and 2) 10 gallons of diesel.  But, these quantities are a function of how we choose to refine the barrel of crude.  For example, we could alter refinement to extract more diesel and less gasoline.  

Another important and rather intuitive correlation is the price of a 'barrel of oil' and the price of a gallon at the pump.

Source: US EIA

The blue line references the left axis or the price of gas per gallon.  The red line references the right axis or the price of oil per barrel.  I apologize the timeline only goes through 2008.  But, as you can imagine, the lines are trending up again.  Today, WTI Crude Oil pricing is $97.26 per barrel on the NYMEX (compare to red line/right axis).  And, according to AAA and their fuel gauge report, the nation wide average price for 'regular' gasoline today is $3.67 per gallon (compare to blue line/left axis).  

Ever refining my knowledge and understanding.  I hope it's helpful to you too.

cheers,

lisa liv

the social network

I'm relatively new to twitter and sometimes feel it's a bit decadent (does every intimate detail of someone's life really need to be broadcast?).  But, it is a fun way to keep up with people while being abroad as well as let people in to funny random things that happen on a daily basis in Norway.  And, a feature I do like is being able to subscribe to what is essentially a news feed from some different sources like Paste Magazine (Music), The Economist, NPR News and the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration).  Not to long after writing my post a, b, c's, these updates filled my twitter feed.....

Ouch.  Almost $1 up in both gas and diesel from a year ago. People have to be feeling this on their budgets.  Gas is a relatively inelastic good in the short run (I know, I'm getting all economics-y on ya) meaning peoples behavior doesn't change much.  The bigger question will be the effect higher prices have on the long run.  Do we start getting serious about smaller cars?  Or investing better in usable public transportation?    The probability this stimulates important R&D in alternatives is good.  And, the future will remain to be scene.  But, I have an idea.  Instead of moaning about how high gas prices are (which, might I remind us, the rest of the world laughs at because we have some of the lowest gas prices), let's use that good old American ingenuity and figure out some new and better solutions.  We've always been pioneers, why not keep exploring new territory?

And, what the hey... click here if you want to follow me on twitter ;)

socially yours and studying for finals,
lisa liv