RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!
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Forum Discussion
LindsayRichards wrote:
The fire in Venezuela's huge (955,000 bbls/day) has got to have an affect on our fuel prices. It is only a few days old, so it hasn't affected the supply chain yet, but it is certainly in the minds of the suppliers. Hurricane Issac has also shut down thousands of oil wells and their associated refineries in the Gulf area. The oil wells can be restarted right away, but the refineries take 4 to 6 days to restart. Neither of these things look good for our fuel pricing.
IMO this points out how frail our oil-burning system is and how sensitive it is to environmental conditions. For the oil supply system this is like the sun going behind clouds in a solar energy system.
But in this case the damage is mitigated by the effect of the huge international global oil market so that we may see very little effect. The USA only uses about 20% of the global supply so most of the cost will fall on big buyers like China and India. That's a plus for the "Free Market" global oil market.
