Reply.
The 4wk avg product supplied from the Navigator is weekly data only.  The other is from the latest monthly or annual data prorated to match the same time period as the weekly.

-----Original Message-----

To: larry.alverson@eia.doe.gov
Subject: Discrepancy in product supllied data

Hi Larry. I wanted to know why the product supplied 4 week average here

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wrpupus24.htm

is different from the 4 week product supplied average here

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/curren t/txt/wpsr.txt

I know there is a one day difference but even the previous report showed such huge discrepancy.

The difference is in the end dates 10/29/04-20,391 vs 10/28/04-20,849. But that cannot be explained by a huge supply on one day or no supply on another as it happened last week as well.

Your comments will be appreciated.

http://www.npd.no/engelsk/cwi/pbl/en/profile/prod/all/total_ncs_pr_year.htm

http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/36584.htm

Historic Vermont Meeting in State Capital Passes Resolution to Secede from the U.S.

The neo-con band of criminals running Washington, trampling on civil rights at home and invading countries at will overseas, has led a large group of strong-minded Vermont freedom-fighters with no choice but to secede from the United States.

And last Friday at the state capital building in Montpelier, a historic independence convention was held, the first of its kind in the United States since May 20, 1861, when South Carolina decided to leave the Union.

A packed House Chamber in the Vermont statehouse, with more than 400 gathered, started the daylong secession convention with a speech by keynote James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, and ended with a resolution passed to secede from the United States.

Unfortunately I think this kind of activity has even stronger "nutcase" connotations than Peak Oil for the average reader. If Kunstler is keynoting the Vermont Succession movement, I wonder what else he is involved with?

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ghawar.htm

with the following commentary:

One of the things to keep in mind as you look at the model below is that the original oil column was 1300 feet thick.  Today, the green layer is less than 150 feet thick.  One must draw the necessary conclusions that most of the oil has been removed from Ghawar.You can see for yourself, that the area occupied by oil is not very large compared with where the initial injectors were placed. One friend, a reservoir engineer, to whom I showed this picture said "It's over! Kiss your life-style goodbye!"

is this model depiction as it seems? is the oil drum ~ 90% empty?

When I look at the current This Week in Petroleum - Gasoline report and particularly the demand section, the four week average is now almost the same as the four week average for last year.  Also, the weekly demand amount ONCE AGAIN is greater than a year ago.

Other than perhaps a seasonal reduction in demand, I see nothing even remotely suggesting a demand destruction scenario from these figures.

Also, how can we still have a sizable percentage of Gulf oil production shut in, demand being the same as last year, and crude stocks continuing to build?

Thnx.

there was a bit about inflation buried inside:

" Kraft Foods Inc., the largest U.S. foodmaker, and Kimberly- Clark Corp., the largest maker of diapers, said they are boosting prices to recover higher costs for raw materials and energy. Kraft increased the price of Oscar Mayer cold cuts and Jell-O refrigerated puddings by 3.9 percent. Kimberly-Clark will charge 6 percent more for Scott and Cottonelle toilet tissue and napkins, Viva paper towels and Huggies wipes in February."

"The price of oil is more likely to be 'under $35' in 10 years time than at current levels just below $60 a barrel," he said.

Wall Street Journal quote from Nov. 8th.

[Just before Congressional hearings on oil company profits.]

A far better account of it is Vermont Independence Convention: Confronting the Empire

On October 28 a statewide convention on state secession and running on the theme "Vermont Independence: An Impossible Dream or a Vision of the Future?" was held in the State House in Montpelier, VT. The last time a convention similar to this was held took place in North Carolina in 1861 when the state decided to secede from the US.

The group that organized the convention in Vermont was the Second Vermont Republic (SVR), formed in large part during the last few years. The SVR, according to its web site, "is a peaceful, democratic, grassroots solidarity movement committed to the return of Vermont to its rightful status as an independent republic as was the case in 1791 and to support Vermont's future development as a separate, sustainable nation-state."

Vermont was once a sovereign nation-state between the years 1777 and 1791 (a little known fact in US history) and Second Vermont Republicans are figuring out how to cut Vermont loose from the Empire so it can build on its more democratic and communitarian way of life.

Over three hundred people from Vermont and from various areas in the States and Canada filed into the State House that brisk Vermont morning, walking past "Ethan Allen" (aka Jim Hogue) dressed in full continental regalia, sitting atop a horse. A fellow Vermonter, also in continental garb, was holding the famed green and blue flag of the Green Mountain Boys which has also been adopted by the SVR.

The convention began when the "Irreverand" Ben Matchstick opened with a very poetic "prayer" calling for secession.

Matchstick was followed by "Ethan Allen" who gave a grandiose speech recounting his takeover of Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

Thomas Naylor then took the floor. Naylor is unarguably the architect of the secessionist/independence movement, having come to the decision of secession after realizing, along with fellow Vermonters, that the US Empire "has become too big, too centralized, too powerful, too intrusive, too materialistic, too high-tech, too globalized, too militarized, too imperialistic, too violent, too undemocratic, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities" as he stated in his most recent book "The Vermont Manifesto".

Naylor pointed out the rationale for secession. In sum, the two main problems are that the US government "has lost its soul and has become both unsustainable and unfixable."

Naylor made comparisons between the USSR and the USA, citing among other things that the USSR "pretended to have a multiparty political system"; similarly, the US "has gone down the same path and has one party taking the guise of two."

After Naylor's brief introduction, executive director of the Vermont Historical Society, J. Kevin Graffagnino spoke about the historical significance of Vermont's "larger-than-life frontier hero" Ethan Allen. He pointed out that Ethan Allen's departure from the norm of the so-called "founding fathers" of the US has caused much celebration and adoration of the historical figure by Vermonters of "all political stripes and persuasions". Interestingly, in what is commonly known as "Ethan Allen's Bible", Ethan declared that "we must return to the religion of nature and reason." Apart from Vermont taking a different road of independence, no wonder many of the more puritan "founding fathers" loathed Ethan.

A professor at UVM was next to speak - Dr. Frank Bryan. Bryan is a veteran secessionist and in the 1970s was even involved with the Decentralist League in Vermont which he founded along with none other than prominent Anarchist theorist and activist Murray Bookchin, also a Vermonter.

Bryan pointed out the historical tradition of secession in Vermont. In 1990 he raised the issue of secession into the public lime light and seven Vermont towns voted to secede from the US. He also spoke of his personal feelings on the issue of secession. He had become a Republican in the past because the Democrats "were anti-small town and were proponents of the [much hated] interstate highway system" in Vermont. He was quick to point out that "being a Republican in Vermont is really being a decentralist communitarian." But he left the Republican Party during Reagan's anti-states' rights years, among other things.

Some of the most important aspects of Bryan's speech were his calls for smaller scale. "Scale is critical to tolerance and stability," Bryan pointed out. "Government needs to become small and local" in order for things to work better. He also vocalized some of his well-grounded fears that the Vermont independence movement would lose strength and momentum whenever a liberal Democrat comes to power as president. He urged Second Vermont Republicans not to make the issue of secession into "that type of thing."

The keynote address was given by author of "The Long Emergency", Howard Kunstler. He gave a damning speech against certain aspects of the current system, especially that of suburbia.

"Suburbs represent the greatest misrepresentation of allocation of funds in the history of the world," Kunstler cried out to the cheering throngs in the State House. Similar to Naylor, he made allusions to the decadent, corrupt and failed system in the USSR and the overwhelming similarities it has with the US. "I've traveled all over the country. Travel it! You'll see a country that looks like a former soviet republic... go to Elmira and Utica, NY! You'll see what I mean!"

Kunstler warned of the coming days ahead where America, even during peak oil and its aftermath, will continue to be a car-dependent society. The result? Suburbs will crumble, the federal government will become impotent and people will be forced to live in small-scale societies, much like what Vermonters have been used to over the years. He said that in the future, there will be "a clearer distinction between town and country... we won't be able to afford to abide by building codes... [and] turbulence will be the rule."

His book "The Long Emergency" gives a fuller description of the end of the American Empire during peak oil. Hopefully, Vermonters are making the right moves in getting out of the Empire while they can and scaling down in size to avoid future destruction and disaster.

After a brief lunch break, Naylor spoke again. He argued for Vermont's right to self-determination, direct democracy and self preservation. He also laid out the constitutional legality for Vermont's secession.

He made sure to drive home the point that neither he nor Vermonters are or will decide Vermont's independence; rather, it will be "Bush, Rice, Hillary Clinton [etc.], the cheap oil end game, the collapse of the dollar, etc."

Naylor also answered some very important questions on whether or not Vermont would even be able to sustain itself if secession became a reality. His manifesto goes into further detail but he did point out that there are 50 nations that are the same size or smaller than Vermont in population; some of these nations also happen to be 5 of the 10 richest in the world.

Fellow Second Vermont Republicans spoke throughout the afternoon to discuss some very important issues at hand.

The last main speaker was Kirkpatrick Sale, author of "Human Scale" among many other books. Sale is perhaps one of the greatest decentralist writers in the twentieth century. He focused his talk on organizing the Middlebury Institute which would be dedicated in promoting "the serious study of separatism, secession, self-determination and similar devolutionary trends and developments, on both national and international scales."

A member in the audience asked Sale if Vermonters will ever use violence to achieve the goal of secession. Sale responded that although the SVR encourages non-violence and a peaceful dissolution, it would have to be Vermonters themselves who make their decisions.

At the end of the daylong convention, a majority of people present voted in favor of supporting two resolutions that were brought to the table: one calling for Vermont's return to an independent Vermont republic and the other urging the SVR to apply for membership in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

The SVR is not, as some critics may argue, a vanguardist group - members of the SVR have no interest in running in elections on a secessionist party ticket. It can perhaps be best described as "a movement." And maybe this struggle, when it gains more ground, may be described as a "national liberation struggle"; of course, not in the sense of the struggles that shook the world throughout the middle and latter parts of the twentieth century.

The makeup of SVR's membership is quite interesting: progressives, libertarians, greens, conservatives and even radicals make up the motley crew that is the SVR. This makes it possible for a large variation of ideas to enter the independence debate.

However, if Vermont ever declares its independence officially, what type of government will take its place? Some Second Vermont Republicans envision a system that combines a federal structure with Vermont's long history of direct democracy and town meetings. A president will still be in place and so will a congress. But why end there? Why should Vermonters detach themselves from the shackles of one state apparatus and place themselves under the weight of a new state? Don't Vermonters deserve better than that?

The SVR appears to be taking a similar road to that of national liberation struggles in the past. However well meaning national liberation struggles and groups may have been in the past, the name of their struggle (emphasis on NATIONAL liberation) describes well the intentions and eventual outcome of their situations. Some advice for the SVR: read Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of The Earth" to get a sense of the kind of nationalist struggle he wrote of - one that is internationalist in perspective.

Or if Fanon isn't what SVR folk are looking for, they don't have to look far to find answers. After all, Solzhenitsyn lived in Vermont as did Bookchin.

Maybe the type of democracy the SVR is looking for can be found in the Langdon Street Café in Montpelier, where many SVR meetings have taken place in the past. Langdon has been in existence for a year. It's a worker's owned and controlled collective where all the workers are also bosses. The Café sells a wide variety of organic food and local brews and beverages. Local bands perform quite often. Local artists auction off or display their work. And on the second floor, a small, radical bookstore named Black Sheep Books has set up shop.

This is just what, or so it appears, Kunstler, Sale, Bryan and Naylor were talking about throughout the day: a sustainable, small scale, democratic alternative to the Empire surrounding them and they had to look no farther than a few blocks down the street. Whatever road the Vermont independence movement takes, the possibilities are indeed infinite.

For some audio coverage, visit:
 http://www.uvm.edu/~wruv/?action=archives

and extensive coverage can be found here:

 http://vermontrepublic.org/
 http://www.vtcommons.org

This is not "nutcase" activity, although some who read into it from afar might be. It is, however, brilliant political theater. I applaud Kunstler for participating in it.

I did a P/Q versus Q plot of the entire North Sea.  The region peaked at 52% of Qt (total estimated cumulative oil production) in 1999.  The North Sea is 70% depleted, and they only have about 18 Gb left using this analysis.     At current rates of production, the North Sea would be exhausted in 10 years, which obviously implies a very steep decline rate--which is precisely what we are seeing.

This is critical since the North Sea produces light, sweet crude oil.  

Denver is just as crazy as I remember, with far more concrete and sprawl than 1993 when I left.

I think it very interesting that Chris Skrebowsky gets the first words, to be followed by a Q&A session and the mid-morning break.

I feel the Q&A sessions crucial.

I'm at the Warwick and hope there are some other drumheads here. I'll do my best to report.

http://www.321energy.com/editorials/kunstler/kunstler110905.html

James Howard Kunstler:

The American public's failure to pay attention reached supernatural levels this week as our mass media gloated over falling gasoline prices -- down 24 cents, average, to pre-hurricane levels. The news media took this to mean that all the end-of-the-summer trouble is over with and things can now get back to normal, including especially an economy based on trade in suburban houses.

By the way, that figure is totally wrong. According to http://www.newjerseygasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx gas prices are down more like 70 cents from their peaks, not 24!

What they failed to notice is this: since the hurricanes shredded our Gulf of Mexico oil and gas capacity, Europe has been sending us 2 million barrels of crude oil and "refined product" a day from its collective strategic petroleum reserve. The "refined product" includes 800,000 barrels of gasoline, plus diesel, aviation, and heating fuel. Meanwhile, US domestic production has fallen to around 4 million barrels of conventional crude a day. America uses close to 22 million barrels of oil a day. Bottom line: post-hurricane, total imports have accounted for 80 percent of America's oil consumption..

These figures aren't consistent with

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/curren t/pdf/table12.pdf

They show production last week at 4.3 MBPD, not far from Kunstler's 4, but total crude input to refineries is 14.3 MBPD, not 22! That's a pretty big difference.

Now, the important part of all this is that last week the International Energy Agency (IEA), Europe's energy security watchdog, declared that it would now end the 2 million barrel a day shipments to the US. Not because they are hateful meanies, but because, after all, it is Europe's strategic reserve and they can't sell it all to us because, well, some strategic emergency might come up for them, too.

It will take a few weeks for the last of Europe's tankers to offload supplies and for the various fuels to work their way through the US fuels retail system. With US production and refining still crippled, we can look forward to watching the price of gasoline, heating oil, diesel and aviation fuel kick back up through Thanksgiving and on into the heart of the Christmas shopping season. At the same time, homeowners will be getting their first substantial heating bills of the season.

So here's the test. Look at near-term gasoline futures prices. Today's close was $1.55 for December and $1.61 for January. By that time the European imports should be over. According to Kunstler, gasoline prices will "kick back up" through this period and we should see major new highs. Yet these prices don't show any such effect.

So who is right, Kunstler or the markets? If Kunstler is right and prices are pretty much certain to rise in the next two months, we can make a very nice profit by buying gasoline futures now. Of course, if market participants believed that, they would have factored that into their investments and the price would already be bid up. Because it's not, we can conclude that the market does not believe that gasoline prices are going to rise substantially between now and January.

Which is more likely: that one guy, who happens to be a little loose with his figures, is wrong?  Or that thousands of people who are betting their kids' college money are totally ignorant about this elementary information that Kunstler reports?

My recommendation is to go with the consensus of people who are putting their money where their mouths are. There are other factors here that Kunstler either doesn't know about or chooses not to tell us. What are those factors? It doesn't matter! You don't even need to know! Just trust that the market motivates people to bet on what they really believe will happen, because that is how they make the biggest profits. We have the luxury of sitting back, not investing a penny, but benefiting from the collective wisdom that is revealed in these market prices.

That is the great social benefit performed by markets like these. They tell us that Kunstler is wrong, and we don't even have to know why.

Now if you modify the MMS update URL you can look at any date in the past you want. When comparing this data (shut in %) with that at the EIA data there appears to be a discrepancy. I'm not sure why, but any explanation for such discrepancy would be helpful.

http://www.tradearabia.com/tanews/newsdetails_snOGN_article96023_cnt.html

Mr. Gunn, who is credited with turning around New York City's subway system in the 1980's and came out of retirement three years ago to steer Amtrak successfully during a financial crisis, described the reason for his dismissal as "ideological."

"Obviously, what their goal is - and it's been their goal from the beginning - is to liquidate the company," Mr. Gunn said in the interview.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/politics/10amtrak.html