Gasoline prices in Maine rise 5.1 cents in last week. (Brunswick: activities, natural gas)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Irving's refinery is in St John, New Brunswick. They get their oil from Hugo Chavez.

When the feds made every gas station buy new fiberglass tanks 20 years ago, over 600 Mom and Pop gas stations closed in Maine. That's a lot of small town businesses that went under. You see the abandoned stores all over. It hurt the economies in rural Maine very badly. It was intentional. Those who have read these pages for a few years know the name for this initiative. For the new visitors, it is called rural cleansing.

Some of those gas stations at general stores had brand new steel tanks and the owners went bankrupt because they had to remove the tanks. Very simple and economical measures could have been done to keep those 600 businesses in operation:
1. Drill little holes in the ground and take soil samples to see if the tank is leaking.
2. Attach a sacrificial anode to the tank to prevent corrosion and future leaks.
3. If a leak is detected, provide a low interest economic development loan to replace the tank and keep the business open.
4. Use a similar plan to replace the oldest tanks first over an extended time.

All this was known. When the new fiberglass tanks were installed the owners had to use specific fiberglass piping from the tanks to the pumps. Guess what; Ethanol dissolves the resin in the pipes the government required. The defective pipes had to be dug up and replaced with (guess what) government specified fiberglass pipe with a slightly different resin. Anybody know what dissolves that resin? Methanol dissolves it. What do you suppose the government wants to use in their new proposed 15% alcohol motor fuel? By golly you guessed it.

Business could never make this stuff up. Only government can foul up the economy to these absurd levels.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by beltrams

Even though US oil production is up slightly, and even though US drivers are using less oil, the price is still going up, thanks to increasing demand from the Developing World....yeah, I know, I said that last week.

What's new is that we're losing a fourth oil refinery in the North East. Given the high price of refinery input (crude oil) and given the lower volumes US drivers are buying (as well as somewhat lower heating oil and jet fuel too), it doesn't make sense to keep those refineries going, especially in places like Pennsylvania where all the crude oil has to be brought in from far away (PA having seen its crude oil production peak many decades ago.)

Next we'll see an acceleration of gasoline stations closing. I mean, there's been a consolidation of many smaller stations closing as larger, multi-island stations have been built over the past 20 or more years, but the trend will pick up greatly now with an outright loss of the number of gas pumps I should think.

I'd imagine that the coming electric and plug-in hybrid cars are going to really cut filling station numbers too. Not that electric cars are going to be bought in huge numbers right away, but I should think that even having 5 percent or so of the vehicle fleet turn over into electric cars or plug in hybrids operated on a daily basis mainly within their electric range will be another nail in the coffin of gas stations and any remaining regional refineries.

Gas station numbers have been shrinking for decades now due to market pressures and increased regulations. There were some huge water contamination cases caused by leaking gas station fuel tanks back in the 1970s and 1980s -- IIRC Friendship Village, for example, had to install an entire municipal water system because a leaking tank at the local gas station contaminated the groundwater and local wells. The state DEP reacted (or over-reacted, depending on your POV) by drawing up some pretty stringent rules on buried fuel tanks that put a lot of small stations out of business.

Margins on gasoline sales have never been huge. Stores make more profit on a cup of coffee than they do on a gallon of gas. Plus, a lot of the old-style roadside garages with gas pumps out front have closed for one reason or another. When I started my 50-mile commute in 1993, there were three "full service" garages on my route. By 2000 they had all closed.

Q: I'm ignorant on this - where does Irving refine most of the gasoline and diesel it sells in Maine, anybody know? What refineries does Irving own, operate, or otherwise buy from in Eastern Canada? Are they relatively new, modern refineries?

The reason I ask that is I'm wondering how safe from closure those refineries are. Then what happens to Maine gas prices if said refineries are gone?

Irving's closest refinery is in St. John, NB, as NMLM notes. The company owns several in eastern Canada. All their oil comes from overseas. While they sell a lot of fuel here in Maine, Canada is their major market.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

I don't know who buys crude from the Hibernia project east of Newfoundland. I know it was a big help to the Newfoundland economy when it was under construction.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

I don't know who buys crude from the Hibernia project east of Newfoundland. I know it was a big help to the Newfoundland economy when it was under construction.

Is that field still producing? With all the attention the Sable Island gas field was getting, Hibernia dropped right off my radar back in those days.

[Coaster]

A rather sobering look at the global oil situation is currently top of the page at ZeroHedge:

Erste Group's Complete 2012 Oil Price Outlook - "Nothing To Spare", Crude Could Reach $200 | ZeroHedge

Fair warning -- if you delve into the reader comments at the end, some of the language may be NSFW. There's a graph that has oil prices in both nominal and inflation adjusted terms that you might find interesting.

The essay focuses considerable attention on the Iran situation, with good reason. We seem to be using the same strategy with Iran that we used with Iraq -- push them into a corner and when they react, say, "See? See? We told you they couldn't be trusted..." Regardless, military action will spike oil prices -- the analysis above predicts $200 -- but IMO the spike will be just that, a brief blip into the stratosphere followed by a relatively quick cliff dive as demand destruction and economic collapse set in.

Down here at ground level in Maine, we would see $5 and $6 gasoline almost immediately. While I would never suggest people do anything unsafe, anyone with a spare 5-gallon gas can laying around the garage would be foolish not to have it filled beforehand if the world situation starts to look grim.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Hibernia is still producing and there are three newer fields that will produce. The production is light sweet crude, the very best kind. Check the link:

Hibernia - Offshore Technology

[RiverBird]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

This truly a sorry state of affairs. We have relied on the same basic design of the combustion engine for over 100 years. We have allowed ourselves to be slaves to burning petroleum. We should have engineered a cleaner, more efficient, renewable solution long ago. American ingenuity has been replaced by old guard industrial greed and we are suffering the consequences.

I see no scientific reason that an engine, be is combustion or otherwise, cannot be made to run entirely and efficiently on some type of renewable biomass. Just think where we could be if we grew our fuel instead of mining for it.

History of the electric vehicle:

Timeline: History of the Electric Car . NOW on PBS

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by newenglandgirl

History of the electric vehicle:

Timeline: History of the Electric Car . NOW on PBS

If most of our power grid is still generated by fossil fuels, then the electric car, any electric vehicle that needs to be "plugged into" an outlet, is essentially STILL running on fossil fuel combustion.

[Coaster]

I've noticed new reports of drastic price increases -- 8-20 cents a gallon in some places -- around the country this weekend. Nothing seen here yet, but I'm waiting.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

If most of our power grid is still generated by fossil fuels, then the electric car, any electric vehicle that needs to be "plugged into" an outlet, is essentially STILL running on fossil fuel combustion.

According to the DOE;
33% of our electricity comes from Natural Gas;
30% of our electricity comes from 'Renewable';
22% of our electricity comes from HydroElectric;
12% of our electricity comes from petroleum;
2% of our electricity comes from coal;
0% of our electricity comes from nuclear.


http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=ME (broken link)