Before anyone gets their knickers in a bunch, let me clarify this release. Some crude pipes will shut down for a few hours over New Years. Most crude pipes in reasonably temperate areas can afford a few hours downtime. In fact, it's not unusual to have a "power outage" for example shut down a pipe for a brief period of time. As long as the pipe gets back up within say 6-8 hours no big deal. That is NOT to say crude pipes can be turned off in areas like say Alaska or Canada for very long without substantial risk of candle production. For those of you who don't know what that means, if crude is exposed to cold temps for very long in a pipeline, the wax in the crude (the lower the API gravity, and higher the parrafins, the more susceptible) will turn the section of pipe into a giant plugged candle. Pipeline guys hate when that happens, cause you're fubar.

That being said, the Seaway pipe is gonna do the old shutdown for a few hours round new years. This one caught me off guard, I was ok with shutting down the clean products lines (gas and diesel etc.) but this freaked me out a little. Screwing with crude lines is dicey shit. Only very rarely do these shut down, ex: fires, major maintenance etc.

PS-Anyone notice crude? It's up a tad since we last spoke. Even the dumbass executives are now starting to get a little nervous. Gas had a whopper draw of five million freaking barrels. We need confirmation of the DOE's tommorrow on this gas number as it is a statistical freakazoid. To have that large a gas draw in mid November is bizzare. I would say it confirms that J. Q. Public is now storing gas in his/her garage, farm tanks, etc. Get it while you can gang. I'll let you know tommorrow if the DOE's confirm it. Here's the deal, gas demand is usually off a bit in the winter, taking a back seat to distillates, heat etc., and this draw was unexpected in it's size. To give you an idea of how off, the consensus (BTW, no one asked me) was that gas would have built 375kbpd. What this means to you is that the experts are probably scratching their heads tonight wondering how the hell we managed to draw down so much more.

If S. Hussein, that rollicking psychotic in the desert, decides this weekend to announce oil for food is off, WTI will go to 30 dollars. And you think there's no inflation? Dream on.

PS- I was right about the floating 12 million Iranian bbls. going to the Japanese. They officially denied it in a Telerate article today, that's as good a confirm as I need.

For educational, research and bewilderment purposes only:

PLATT'S: Arco plans temporary shutdown of Seaway pipeline Dec 31 New York (Platt's)--16Nov1999/110 pm EST/1810 GMT Atlantic Richfield plans to enact a temporary, precautionary shutdown of its Seaway pipeline in the hours leading up to and passing the turn of the millenium, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. The spokeswoman said that although no firm shutdown schedule has yet been set, the likely shutdown on the 220,000 b/d line would be from three to five hours on either side of midnight, Dec 31. Seaway runs from Houston to Cushing, Oklahoma.

[PGA] [PGT] [ENR] [PLTN] [LEN]

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), November 16, 1999

Answers

Thank you so much for keeping us posted. I appreciate your work.

-- mommacarestx (nospam@thanks.com), November 16, 1999.

If we sent our names into the corporation would they donate some of the candles our way? Is that wax a freebie and up for grabs? We could all make ourselves and others enormous stockpiles of candles for the simple cost of wicks.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), November 16, 1999.

Thanks Gordon,

I hope I have an opportunity to discuss all of this with the PR VP tomorrow.

I will report what happened, and then I'm going to take off the brakes.

-- Laura (Ladylogic46@aol.com), November 16, 1999.

Thanks Gordon, Think I'll call my local co-op and have them top off my tank.

-- dozerdoctor (dozerdoc@yahoo.com), November 16, 1999.

Gordon,

I just wanted to thank you again - for all your good work, before I go to sleep tonight. (I'm going to sleep more soundly now that I "get" the " big picture".)

I honesty do appreciate you.

Most humbly yours,

-- Laura (Ladylogic@aol.com), November 16, 1999.

Hey Gordo,

Great scoop... and fascinating...but you are right about the topping off bit. I've heard that a lot of this buildup is commercial in nature and not simply the doomers...that is unless you call most of the big corps doomers!!! Ha, what irony. These boys claim, "oh yeah, we're okay, Y2K -- no big deal ... Oh by the way get me Milton in purchasing and tell him to order an extra 100,000 gallons of diesel for the fleet...and get that tank company on the line to tell us when the extra tank construction will be finished. Let's get that extra fuel in here now... but seriously folks, Y2K...oh no problem"... yeah as long as they get theirs...screw everyone else. Yup it looks like it could be a real dogfight for fuel...riots at the filling station by Christmas??? That may not be so farfetched after all, perhaps...but I wouldn't call my bookie in Vegas just yet to lay some cash on it.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 16, 1999.

Oh Gordon,

I almost forgot... did you see that idiotic post by Factfinder from Mon night? Seems like he conveeeeeniently has amnesia about the several prior threads we did on what oil embeddeds were non-compliant Guess he didn't want to go look at Baker Hughes. Anyway...can you email me privately for a question off the board? It seems like you posted something a while back that I forgot to save.

And one other point... on these pipeline shutdowns. The time frame for remaining shut down really depends on the ambiant temperatures, especially ground temps for underground pipelines. I think exposed pipes are probably the greater concern as they are more susceptible to the temps than those already buried in ground, usually below the freezing line. I know that the exposed pipelines is the big concern among my refinery contacts...because IF power goes out these guys tell me that their refineries are "fubar" and it's liable to be a 90 day mess...that is if its only a few hours or a day of no juice. 3 weeks means a really big time delay for sure...major turnaround will likely be necessary, especially those refineries that hadn't seen one for awhile anyway, which most haven't so it seems. Oil execs don't want to shut down production for anything...and want 120% production not just 100%. One of my relatives told me his refinery is just an accident waiting to happen because serious maintenance has been neglected for about 5 years now on key units and his refinery is one of the better ones.

Keep 'em coming.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 17, 1999.

gecko69,

I am finding it hard to fathom with your tenure in the market how you could surmise------>$30.00 a barrel!!!!! in Jan.

A year ago crude was $10bbl. and today pushing $26bbl. and that increase was precipitated by ?????? in one year.

Now with all of the derogatory info. regarding venezuela,nigeria,saudi, add to that the Senate report on the state of the ports around the world, add to that The obvious stockpiling that will and is going to take place---and the need for oil companies to make up for the pathetic market over the last 10years and on and on and you have got yourself the makings of prices the likes we have never seen in this country and that would include during the Gulf War.

$100bbl

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), November 17, 1999.

To Buttsomething: Would that crude futures were simply a linear equation, all nice and neat. If that were true, I wouldn't have a job, would I? My current scenario has a 10% loss of production capacity for crude oil lost for a period of one to three months. That's 200 to 600 mil. bbls. However, I'm also forecasting a loss of refining capacity as well.

Looks like DOE's confirmed the draw on gas, crude is flying and I'm on vacation for a bit.

RC thanks for the info.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), November 17, 1999.

Whoa, Gordo, not so quick on that vacation deal.....

....unless you take your laptop. We need your assessments and OPIS updates.

So you come up with this wildass Hussein theory for this weekend and you think we're gonna let ya scoot out now????

Where ya going?? The Caymans?

Bug out alert! Bug out alert!

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), November 17, 1999.

Gecko,

Apparently you misunderstood my post regarding where I think oil is going!. Simple stated I think $30.00 is way understated. I am not currently holding any options or future contracts. I am aware it is not a linear game. Please accept my humblest apology, if my post upset you in anyway, as I for one truly understand that you are the great Gecko and only your opinion is gospel when it comes to Oil.

Respectfully, Buttsomething P.S. I take your remark as an insult to my Sir name which I do not take lightly, by the way.

-- Buttsomething (dciinc@aol.com), November 17, 1999.