Word: bbl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Rarely, if ever, has a Government program grown so large only to face extinction in so short a time. Created in 1980, the Synthetic Fuels Corporation had a monstrous initial budget of $15 billion. At the time, some experts expected the price of imported oil to reach $60 per bbl. by the end of the decade. The only solution seemed to be a drive to convert coal reserves, like those underlying the Great Plains site, to synthetic gas or oil. The SFC's first grandiose goal called for the U.S. to produce the equivalent of 2 million bbl. of crude...
...program was doomed almost from the start. The price of oil peaked at more than $40 per bbl. in 1982 and has fallen steadily since, to about $27 per bbl. today. It has thus become much cheaper to import oil than to manufacture synthetic fuels. And that has made projects like Great Plains losing propositions. Says Energy Secretary John Herrington: "Oil and natural-gas prices have simply not proved high enough to make the [Great Plains] project economical. On balance, the costs outweigh the benefits...
...Last year was the strongest oil-demand increase in a generation and the strongest economic growth in a generation. China's oil demand grew 17% last year, or almost 1 million bbl. a day. There have been only a few times in the history of oil that demand has grown by 1 million bbl. a day in a single country; the last was in 1977 when the U.S. was coming out of recession. What we are seeing with China, and with India behind it, is analogous to the European economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. A dozen years...
...Saudis would like to cut prices by as much as $2 per bbl. to increase sales to the point where they could pump at least 4 million bbl. per day. In a market with excess supply, that would mean other OPEC members would have to pump less and cut into their own oil revenues...
...profit squeeze. The average cost of a gallon of gas declined from $1.22 in May of 1984 to $1.15 by last January. In response, companies curbed production. At least 18 American refineries closed last year. The cutbacks have reduced U.S. inventories of gasoline by 9%, to 222 million bbl., since December. The tight supply and a seasonal pickup in driving this spring helped push prices back up. Another factor contributing to higher prices was the expense that oil companies faced to meet a July 1 Government-imposed deadline for reducing the amount of lead in gasoline by more than...