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Gasoline Demand Close To Hitting New Record
Record Last Set, July 2007
This is really cool. Some time ago I wagered that the US would set an all-time record for gasoline demand this year, and it would occur in August. I wagered that it would hit 10 million bbls of gasoline per day. We're not quite there, and we may not hit the 10 million bbls as an average, but it's very possible we will hit 10 million bbls on at least one day (that number will never be known, I suppose, because the best we can do is get weekly totals).
Tweeting now: US gasoline consumption averaged 9.62 million b/d over last 4 wks, highest seas. level since 2007 and close to record.
I assume the last four weeks would be as of the fourth week ending on/about August 7.
See these posts:
This is just shy of the all-time record. At 9.62 million b/d, if that was over a 31-day month (it was not, but if it was), that would be 31 x 9.62 = 298.22 million bbls in that hypothetical month. The US has been above that number once. Back in July, 2007, a 31-day month, the record was set at 298.827 million bbls for the month.
In May, 2015, the most recent month in which data is available, the US hit 286.768 million bbls, a 31-day month.
298.22 - 286.768 = 11.452 / 286.768 = almost a 4% increase.
In 2007, the July demand (the record US demand) was 2.17% greater than the May, 2007, demand.
Extrapolating, for May, 2015, at 286.768 million x 1.0217 = 292.990 million bbls / 31 = 9,450 bbls/day.
It will be close.
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Bakken 101: The Pronghorn
I track the Pronghorn here.
Whiting Petroleum drilled 217 oil wells in Billings and Stark counties targeting the Pronghorn Member of the Bakken Formation from 2010-2014.
In their own words, they drilled these wells and pursued this oil play based upon their work in the Wilson M. Laird Core and Sample Library.
As of November 2014, these wells had produced 19,542,147 barrels of oil. Using just the oil extraction tax and a conservative price of $40/ barrel, Whiting’s Pronghorn oil play has generated more than $50,800,000. That is more than three times the $13.6 million core library expansion.
In November 2014, Whiting Petroleum’s 217 Pronghorn oil wells produced 558,412 barrels or 18,613 barrels per day. These wells generated $48,400 in extraction taxes per day (at $40 per barrel). At that rate, the extraction tax pays off the Wilson M. Laird Core and Sample Library expansion project in 280 days.
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Follow-Up On Henrietta Lacks
I posted this earlier. Some years ago a bestseller book capitalized on the fact that researchers made slightly less than a gazillion dollars on a few cells from a biopsy taken from Henrietta Lacks' cervix (part of a routine medical cancer-detection procedure done annually on most women during their reproductive years).
Flash forward some four years, and now we see Planned Parenthood selling baby parts, prices determined by free market capitalism, supply and demand.
The big outrage with regard to the Henrietta Lacks story was that her cells were used/sold without her consent. There is a very, very real possibility we could see talk of a class action suit against Planned Parenthood by all those women who have similar claims, that their "donations" were sold without their consent (my hunch is that in the long legalese document that the women sign prior to the procedure includes a phrase that the clinic (Planned Parenthood) "owns" the baby parts once collected and the woman leaves the building. That will be why there will be no talk of a class action suit.
It will be interesting to see if women who go to Planned Parenthood strike through that legalese before undergoing the procedure, and if they do, if the clinic would proceed.
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