I put this simple math in another post. I thought it deserves its own post, for people's comments.

• A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons.
• Each barrel is refined into about 25 gallons of gasoline.
• Therefore, $150 dollars worth of oil produces 25 gallons of gasoline.
• The mathematics says that $6 worth of oil produces one gallon of gasoline - not accounting for refining costs.

Yes, the other refining products are sold, and drive down the cost of gasoline. However, I think that it's pretty clear - $100 oil gives $4 gasoline, $150 oil gives $6 gasoline, etc.

And just to put the military use of oil in perspective:
Click to view attachment

The United States Military uses about 2000 barrels of crude per second. At $!50/bbl, that's about $3,000,000.00 per second - just to pay for the Pentagon's use of oil world-wide.

Back in the good ol' days, around the turn of the century, the US produced about 50 million barrels of oil per year, when the mighty John D. Rockefeller oil empire was at its peak. That's about seven hours worth of the current US Military utilization.

Ya, ya, apples and oranges - no-no, don't want to completely turn off the spigot to the Pentagon. But, supply-and-demand fans, competing demand drives up prices - and the US Military use is about equal to the rest of the US use. We're paying for TWO gallons of gas everytime we pump ONE into the ol' SUV. You 'kay with that? Good.

Cowboy have you read the book The Coming Economic Collaspe: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel by Stephen Leeb? I bought this book 2 years ago. I'm re-reading it. Everything Leeb wrote is coming to pass.


The book is good as an investment survival guide, but doesn't address the more day to day surival tips.

Obama is going to have his hands full.

The MSM business channels are getting smarter Steve. They are monitoring the wholesale price of gasolene and home heating oil in realtime each day. Yesterday, wholesale gas price averaged $3.51 United states dollars about what 7.00 in british pounds to us ?

You know, I think Americans are experiencing dissapointment apathy now to include Whitehouse, Congress and numerous agencies run through the Cabinet. It's alot like having a crack addict for a parent I guess. After awhile panic, tradegy and dissapointment becomes the norm so living life in a sort of numb state with no hope on the horizen is evident to me. In fact yesterday, while Bush tried to say things would get better, Crude spiked by at least $1.50 per barrel, Wallstreet went into a bear market and Starbucks announced some 6000 job layoffs.

Lots of writers in the business world are producing articles about how to survive in a bear market or all out crash. Investors want safety too. Kind of like homeowners needing security and equity through a primary residence. You know what though, McCain owns about 6 homes, so does Gore, Angie and Brad are giving birth in Europe. I could probably feed alot people the Pitts paid for a marble table recently furnishing their Nice, France home. Ironic part is that the marble that table was made from, could have come from Barre, VT.

I think you better check the source for that one. First off, 2000 barrels of crude at $150 per barrel is $300,000. $300,000 per second is $18 million per minute, $1.08 billion per hour, $25.9 billion per day, $9.4 trillion per year.

Jabberin' John has the answer for you right HERE! LINK.

You know me, I always like to do my own independant analysis.

The link below has a slightly lower refined gasoline estimate of 19.6 gallons. It also breaks out the other refined components.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/gasoline_faqs.asp

Thankew. It's not a source's error, but a personal screw-up on the numbers.

(HowStuffWorks)

20 million barrels of oil a day, times $150, gives you 3,000 million dollars/day. (three billion a day).
link.

Going backwards - we're about a million barrels an hour, or 230 barrels a second. That's $34,500 per second, or $124,200,000 per hour, or $2,980,800,000 per day going out for oil. Three billion bucks a day - sounds more reasonable.

I just found a great online source for energy data - don't know if it's any good, but it's plentiful. It's here.

In 2005, annual avg. crude oil production in North America was 10.9 million barrels a day, and consumption was 25.2 MBD. So our continent's production was about 40% of our continent's demand.

For the US alone, the numbers are 5.2 MBD and 20.8 MBD. The rest of the continent is at parity, producing about 5.5 MBD and consuming about 5 MBD. North America excepting us, is energy neutral.

Reuters has a "FactBox" on military fuel consumption here.
Accourding to Reuters' FactBox - The US Military consumption of crude oil in 2007 = 132.5 million barrels That's 363,000 barrels per day, per Reuters. The military consumption is a smaller fraction of aggregate US use, about 1% - but that's according to DOD numbers, which might not take into account all military-related consumption.

(Official Federal statistics are found here) Quick Federal Stats are here.

I'm still not sure how much the Feds as a group, or the Military as a subgroup, really use.

Your 2,000 barrels of crude per second seems to be on the high side. Independant analysis shows it being closer to about 4.5 barrels of crude per second in 2004. My second link shows that oil consumption had decreased to 3.7 barrels of crude per second in 2006.


http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/top_5_...consumption.php

Thanks, QBC. My math was messed up. I've refigured it, whist you were posting.

I'm still looking at the role of the US Government as competing user for the private sector - not surprisingly, can't find a link worth anything.

Using your source of 397,000 Barrels of oil per day yields about 4.6 barrels per second.

They'll screw anyone anyway they can.................

This is the second time we have had to raise issues about this company, McDermott International, a Texas-based resource industry giant, and their barge ( the DB 30) because of the way they misuse foreign guest workers.

" Our understanding is that a new group of workers have been flown in for a few days work - and may be flown out within the next 24 hours - and paid around $8 an hour.

The normal Australian crew working to "demob" a barge would be paid at the minimum of $40 an hour, plus entitlements.

http://awu.net.au/national/news/1214881361_22793.html

Among mainstream analysts, predictions of the price reaching $200 are unexceptional. Last month Gazprom, the Russian oil giant, suggested it would hit $250 next year. The maverick energy guru Robert Hirsch, who forecast the present oil squeeze, has suggested the price could reach $500 a barrel within three to five years.

Gas prices are also soaring and coal, though cheap and plentiful, is one of the worst emissions. sources of CO2 What is bad news for businesses and consumers, however, is good for investors in green energy. Vast sums of money are pouring into technologies that until relatively recently were the preserve of niche businesses and environmental campaigners. This year should see a record £73 billion or more invested in “clean technology” despite the credit crunch, according to a report published last week by the consultants New Energy Finance for the United Nations.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/...icle4277055.ece