Quote:
Originally Posted by Strat God
The national average is now $3.90.
This is the number one reason the US is on the brink of recession.....
I'm just venting - OPEC says they wil not release more barrels. Talk about Terrorism...we need to erradicate OPEC until we can figure out how to circumvent this oil problem. There is no reason for $100. barrels of oil-none.  |
This is a severe oversimplification of a highy complex issue. To begin with, the United States is not the only country facing problems from the rising price of oil; the effects are being diffused across the globe; even OPEC countries are going to face economic problems as a result of the recession which is, only in part, attributable to the rising cost of fuel.
It is wrong to place all, or for that matter most, of the blame on OPEC. Many of these countries are, in fact, already producing at close to maximum capacity. Additionally, increasing production will only ensure that we reach the inevitable peak (and then declining) production even faster. While increased prodution now would possibly help, minimally, to reduce prices in the short-term, it would hasten the much more severe problems which will arise once production rates start to decline globally.
The rising price of oil is largely, though not entirely, the result of increasing global demand. This worldwide rise in demand is outpacing increases in production and will continue to do so; there is only so much oil that can be extracted and many countries have already peaked in their capacity to produce. Even more problematic is the fact that expert opinion is nearly uniform in the belief that global production will peak at some point between 2010 and 2040, though global demand will continue to rise. This will only serve to make prices rise even faster. Many countries in the developing world have seen strong economic growth over the past decade which has led to immense numbers of cars being added to their roads; China and India alone are responsible for millions of new cars being added annually. Add to this the fact that this economic growth is leading to ever increasing global trade, which also requires greater amounts of fuel and the problem is made that much worse. This is an inevitable trend that isn't going to change anytime soon. Add to this instability in certain major oil-prodcing countries (Iraq, Iran, the Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela) and you have a truly massive global problem which isn't going away. The fact is, oil prices are going to continue to rise and there is little that can be done to stop this, though it may be possible to slow the trend a little. Prices will, of course, fluctuate; they may seem to stabilize at times and even decline every once in awhile, but the general trend will be ever upwards.
But all these products are produced sort of parallel to eachother. You can then crack the longer hydrocarbons if you have too many from them, but other than that the room refineries can vary their production of end products is rather limited. Diesel is as much a byproduct of making gasoline as gasoline is a byproduct of making Diesel.
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