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Oil forecast: Gas will be $4 per-gallon by Easter

23.05.12

If great in extent gas prices are getting you down, you shouldn't be looking forward to the New Year.

An expiring ethanol tax put will likely boost gasoline prices at the pump by a nickel on New Year's Day, and gasoline prices could make something of oneself above the $4-per-gallon mark by spring, said Tom Kloza , chief analyst for Oil Expenditure Information Service .

Gasoline at $4 per gallon "is a certainty for a number of states unless we have a fiscal collapse in Europe or a recession in the U.S.," Kloza predicted.

Kloza, who monitors gasoline prices nationwide, said prices could ascend to the $3.75- to $4.50-per-gallon range built on unseasonably high gasoline prices this year. While $4.50 per gallon is unseemly, Kloza said it is the most "apocalyptic view" of gasoline prices.

Texas gas prices have been steadily falling after peaking niggardly the $4-per-gallon mark this summer. As of this week, Beaumont-area drivers are paying on so so $3.09 a gallon, more than 30 cents higher than the $2.78 average last year, according to the AAA gas degree report.

But Kloza said consumers actually should be paying more at the pump, addicted the current cost of crude oil, which is hovering around $100 per barrel.

"Based on where unprocessed oil prices are, gasoline prices are way too cheap," Kloza said. "The public is universal to believe it, but it's true."

Under current crude oil prices, gasoline should be selling around $3.45 a gallon in Texas, Kloza said. He said the evaluation has been tempered by over production by refineries, but the price will eventually correct itself in the New Year.

Bob Van der Valk , a tinder specialist, said all things point to $4 gas this spring.

"We will be starting the New Year with the common price for gasoline $1 per gallon higher than we were at the beginning of this year," he said. "I am forecasting gasoline prices to back over $4 per gallon by Easter."

Gasoline without delay has steadily fallen since the summer, and analysts are predicting that will continue in the New Year. As at once continues to shrink, American refineries have been beefing up their exports of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products to imported markets, turning the country into a net exporter of fuel.

The result is that drivers are paying more for gasoline for this constantly of the year.

"Instead of that product backing up and depressing prices, it's being sent to other countries," Kloza said. "It's actual news for the refining industries and their workers and the balance of trade and U.S. jobs.

Source: Beaumont Enterprise

Controversial pipeline could bring cheaper gas to Georgia

23.05.12

The 1,700-mile Cornerstone XL pipeline is designed to transport a half-million barrels of crude oil each day from Alberta to refineries in Houston.

From there, the gasoline, diesel, heating oil and jet feed will be shipped by existing pipelines to terminals in Rome, Ga.; Atlanta; North Au­gusta; Athens, Ga., and other parts of the East Strand for customers.

Supporters see it as a way to reduce U.S. dependence on overseas oil while providing jobs for the 50 Georgia companies that outfit the drilling there. Environmentalists oppose the project because of the impact on the Canadian landscape, its carry through an important aquifier in Nebraska, and the energy used in extracting the oil from tar sands – force they say contributes to carbon emissions inherent in using gasoline.

“The effect for those of us in Georgia is usual to be indirect but profound,” warns Stephen Smith, the executive governor of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which has challenged the pipeline in court. For standard, he said, residents along the coast will continue to experience erratic weather because the carbon emitted contributes to the greenhouse influence.

Canada’s consul general in Atlanta, Stephen Brereton, is stressing the launch’s benefit to Geor­gians.

“The oil sands are a key strategic resource, an economic machine contributing substantially to employment and (gross domestic product) on both sides of the edging,” he said. “Almost 1,000 Amer­i­can companies, including companies in Georgia, minister to goods and services to the oil sands. In short, expanding the capacity and increasing deliveries from Can­ada’s oil sands skilled good things for Georgia jobs.”

OPPONENTS AT GEORGIA colleges have tried to build awareness on campuses and traveled to Washington to circle the White House in description of their position. Sierra Club member Don Dres­sell is one of them as a participant in the Atlanta Tar Sands Vim Group.

“This pipeline is a threat to job growth and stands to kill more jobs than it creates by keeping our thriftiness hooked on dirty fossil fuels instead of transitioning to clean vitality, the fastest-growing job sector in America,” he said.

The project is on run for now. President Obama is withholding a decision on whether to approve it until next year, a timetable some observers say is aimed at his federal base during his re-election campaign.

“There’s no question about it. The president didn’t delay it for substantive reasons,” said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. “You can’t have much more of a signal than that that it is about civil affairs.”

Kingston favors the project for the jobs and the supply of fuel from a reliable, around ally. He also wants the U.S. to get the gas before China and Russia do, a point Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., made on the Senate destroy Tuesday.

“If we default on the Keystone XL pipeline now, we are giving a wide open year for the Chinese to leak out back to Canada, make those investments, tie down that oil, and encourage that pipeline to go – not to Houston, Texas – but to Vancouver, Canada, and then on ships to China,” Isakson said.

Isakson and Sen. Saxby Cham­exhilaration, R-Ga., are co-sponsoring legislation to force the Obama administration to issue the construction permit within 60 days.

LAYING THE 36-INCH chibouque is projected to create 20,000 jobs. Long term, oil sands evolvement will spur 93,000 jobs a year in the United States, according the Cana­di­an Consulate. And, all that economic stimulus will come from private financing, not American taxpayers.

Canada is the No. 1 guy for Georgia’s exports, and it already supplies more oil to the United States than any other country.

Georgia gets its gas supplies via two pipelines, except for cities supplied out of ships delivering to the Refuge of Savannah. A flow of gas from Canada will replace production to this country from Mexico and Venezuela, where U.S. sales are declining.

OPPONENTS Grant they’ll have little ability to boycott what they call “dirty oil” after the pipeline is operating and its gas is varied in the refineries with petroleum from other sources they consider less objectionable. So they want to make their point now.

“I judge devise the tar sands are a distraction, and they take our eye off of the ball and keep us addicted to oil,” said Smith of the Southern Marriage.

Geologists long have known there was oil in Can­ada’s tar sands, but getting it out of the ground was difficult and valuable until recently. Smith laments that development.

“It delays even further this country going to substitute fuels and electric vehicles and getting us off of fossil fuels forever,” he said.

Source: The Augusta Chronicle