Fossil Fuel Is Dead! Long Live Fossil Fuel -- March 25, 2021

Link here. 

Imagine this headline in the United States: 

Texas and Louisiana now have at least -- repeat, at least -- four major new refineries under construction. Most of these new refineries along the Gulf Coast are expected to produce plastic feedstocks, such as ethylene and propylene.

Instead, we get this headline: President Biden kills they Keystone XL which would have brought much needed Canadian heavy oil to US refineries along the Gulf Coast. 

In fact the actual headline is this: China has at least four major new refineries under construction, most of which are expected to produce plastic feedstocks, such as ethylene and propylene.

The article at the link is chock full of interesting data points.

The world leader in refining:

• until recently, it had been the US:
• due to Covid-19 and a concerted effort to shut down the US oil industry by some faux environmentalists, China succeeded in overtaking the USA as the world's biggest oil refiner in 2020;
• China's lead is most likely only temporary with the USA back in first place by the end of the year (2021), assuming no more bad news from the Biden administration;
• but long term, it's probably likely that America's lead will be short-lived as oil demand continues to rise across Asia.

Fossil fuel is dead! Long live fossil fuel!

That Suez ship: it may be in worse trouble than we are being told. From a reader who knows this stuff pretty well. First note earlier this morning:

Long story short ... ships are not designed to 'sit on the ground'.

If this fully-laden, 1,200 foot long ship is resting on bottom anywhere along its keel  (certainly a portion of its bow area is right now), the unbalanced structural stresses could be enormous.

If any cracks develop, the ship will take on water and no longer be simply a floating obstruction ... it will be a sunken one.

Removal could be several months up to a year depending upon many factors.

Then this, from later this afternoon:

Upon much closer inspection of pictures, not only is the bow 20 to 30 feet higher than the stern, there is a noticeable list to port side. (VERY bad implications there).

Evidence of hull leaking growing, not receding.

Ramifications too numerous to elaborate.

Next 48 hours could be pivotal.

And, so there we are. How fast can "they" get Huey helicopters there to start air-lifting containers off that container ship, if that's even possible.