# oil reserves??



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Does anyone know how much is in the oil reserves??

When would be the time to use some of them?

With gas prices lurking near $3/gal, hurricane Katrina stopping 800 oil rigs, harvest going on with the farmers in the midwest, winter approaching, and a war going on; I would think this would be a time to use some or the majority of them up???


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Keep in mind they are called strategic reserves, and for good reason. Depleting them would be a bad idea. Using some would be ok, as long as they replace them.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

The reserves will never be depleted as long as there is a steady supply of oil coming into the country. Even is some of the reserves were used to artificially lower fuel prices, our refining and distribution capacity is a greater issue than the amount of crude available. Burl


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

> Keep in mind they are called strategic reserves, and for good reason.
> 
> Strategic for what? What good reason?


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

If you are talking about Strategic oil reserves, we only have 658 million 
barrels stashed away. The USA uses a little over 19 million barrels a day for everything which means about 30 days of operation. Releasing into the market for gasoline would not drop the price at all. Now if you are talking about USA oil reserves, meaning oil in the ground available for pumping out there is something like 4.5 billion gallons. But we have to drill, pump and refine the stuff.


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Looks like we have oil, so our problem might be refineries?? Do we not have enough of them?


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## arctic plainsman (Aug 21, 2005)

Dang guy's, the Middle East nations that have sponsored, babysat, or otherwise have aided terrorists are getting rich atour expense! That's it, I'm walking.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Live2hunt

I was speaking of strategic in the military sense. We watched as the lack of fuel made Hitler struggle, and learned from that. Our military had been stockpiling ever since then, but in 1975 congress authorized the strategic reserve. It was never to be touched unless we were subjected to a n embargo, or had to defend ourselves cut off from foreign oil supplies. 
I am amazed that some of the people who do not want to touch social security are so willing to dip into our strategic reserve. I guess they are willing to risk security, but not money.


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## Bore.224 (Mar 23, 2005)

All I know is its going to be a Long ,Long winter!!! :eyeroll:


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## howlplay (Aug 23, 2005)

What a nice start to a new millenium


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## DeerScarer (Jul 23, 2005)

Gohon said:


> If you are talking about Strategic oil reserves, we only have 658 million
> barrels stashed away. The USA uses a little over 19 million barrels a day for everything which means about 30 days of operation. Releasing into the market for gasoline would not drop the price at all....


Now, I do not mean to offend here, I made the same assumption, but this turned out to be wrong. Hind sight is 20/20, but maybe everyone can take a lesson from this. Like good ol' Gohon here, I sincerely believed that releasing that oil from the strategic reserve would have no effect (Bush approved up to 2 million barrels per day - just 10% of daily consumption - about 3 weeks ago). But I was wrong, and the price is down. And boy am I happy about being wrong this time!

Best part of it is, at 2 million barrels per day, it'll take a while before the reserve is significantly drawn down. By then hopefully everything will be up and running in the Gulf of Mexico again and we won't need it. My wife's cousin lives in Louisiana and works on one of those big off-shore rigs that was in the path of Katrina. It was also hit by one of the big ones last year. He's laid off for now!

-Dave


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

They also stopped the rule forcing different blends for different areas of the country. This had the effect of allowing fuel to be able to be shipped to where demand was greatest, forcing the price down as well.

There are lots of factors to fuel prices

another one is the hurricannes on oil futures, this hurricane out in the gulf will probably bring the prices back up


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

DearScarer, with all due respect the release of oil by President Bush was peanuts. What his intentions were, was to ease the market worries and keep the speculators at the stock exchange in check, not reduce price at the pump which he knew it wouldn't. We have less refineries working today since the hurricane yet the price is dropping a little at the pump.....why? The President could release a billion gallons of oil if he had it but with out refineries it is useless except to control market speculation which is what is driving up the price. Kuwait donated 500 million dollars worth of oil to the US for Katrina and that has had a effect as well as the 250 million dollars in oil donation from Saudi Arabia. There are many variables that resulted in the slight drop in price this last week but the release of strategic oil had little, very little impact. If you will notice it has already started a slow climb back up.


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

No refineries built in 30 years plays the major factor, along with the hurricanes.


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## DeerScarer (Jul 23, 2005)

Actually Gohon, it's down 48 cents a gallon here, and hasn't started back up yet. But I filled both cars tonight. That new hurricane looks bleak indeed. :eyeroll: I'll be very surprised if the economy survives this next one....

But, what do you have against Bush anyway? Give credit where credit is due, man. Michael Savage was wrong and the price came down! Yet neither he nor you can admit to it. Maybe I'm biased because I voted for the man twice, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the way he's handled just about everything God and the devil have thrown at him over the past five years. 8)

-Dave


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

> I'll be very surprised if the economy survives this next one....


 the economy will be fine there will actaully be a boom after this due to the rebuild efforts


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

I have nothing against President Bush, well actually that isn't true because he has done some things wrong. I also voted for him twice and I like what he has done as President. But lowering gas prices at the pump by releasing a little oil from the oil reserves isn't the reason for the drop in any measurable sense and that is simple truth so no credit is due there. I think he is about to make another mistake by throwing all this money at Katrina without someone responsible for every dollar spent. Anyway the price of diesel has jumped 22 cents in the last 48 hours here where I am and the hurricane hasn't even hit Texas yet. Now why do you suppose that fuel in the ground at the stations suddenly got higher? A little price gouging by the oil companies maybe? And maybe the reason it fell last week was because of the screams from the consumers these last two weeks and the big guys (oil companies) are a little gun shy about stirring the pot to much just now. Market speculators, hurricane shutting refineries down, and price gouging is the reasons in my opinion the price of gas is bouncing like a yoyo. Don't worry though, it will settle around $2.90 a gallon soon and people will breath easier and smile because it is below $3.00 a gallon while forgetting it was only $1.40 a year ago. They get suckered every time............

BTW........Michael Savage is always wrong. You don't really listen to that guy do you.......pleas say it ain't so Joe............ :lol:


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## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

Bobm, I got to go along with you on that one. I agree the economy will boom after the hurricanes. Of course this boom will not take place for a few years. We will then have a democrat in the white house, it will be a false economy much as what we had when Clinton was president.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

if this hurricane takes out a lot of refineries that will hurt for awhile but the rebuilding will make tht area of our infrastructure more modern and more efficient.

IF it does, maybe people will wake up to the need to build more refineries...


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