Scrutable

Brightonian wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:43 pm

Oil price down to -$37.63 a barrel. No, that "-" isn't a typo.

Brightonian wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:43 pm

Oil price down to -$37.63 a barrel. No, that "-" isn't a typo.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 7:48 pm

Brightonian wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:43 pm

Oil price down to -$37.63 a barrel. No, that "-" isn't a typo.

There was an article in one of the papers of them hiring supertankers to act as offshore storage facilities at a cost of $300K plus per day. Not surprised they'd pay you to take it off their hands.

Sciolus wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:53 pm

Unrelated but similar, there was a period* earlier this year when National Grid was paying people to take electricity off its wires because it couldn't dump load or reduce supply fast enough.

*A couple of hours? CBA to dig out references or facts or tedious sh.t like that.

Pucksoppet wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:32 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 7:48 pm

Brightonian wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:43 pm

Oil price down to -$37.63 a barrel. No, that "-" isn't a typo.

There was an article in one of the papers of them hiring supertankers to act as offshore storage facilities at a cost of $300K plus per day. Not surprised they'd pay you to take it off their hands.

Part of it might be an artefact of it being breathtakingly expensive to shut down production, much like blast furnaces. I don't think it is quite as simple as oil gelling/coagulating in pipelines if it isn't kept moving, but some of the processes are continuous flow where there is a minimum required flow for safety purposes. If the producers thought that the situation wasn't temporary, they would run an economic slide rule over the operation and shut down in a heartbeat if continued operation didn't make sense. Restarting might take weeks, if restarting were deemed economic. Now is a good time for out-of date and less-efficient-than new/modern facilities to be shut down permanently.

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:31 am

Pucksoppet wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:32 pm

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 7:48 pm

There was an article in one of the papers of them hiring supertankers to act as offshore storage facilities at a cost of $300K plus per day. Not surprised they'd pay you to take it off their hands.

Part of it might be an artefact of it being breathtakingly expensive to shut down production, much like blast furnaces. I don't think it is quite as simple as oil gelling/coagulating in pipelines if it isn't kept moving, but some of the processes are continuous flow where there is a minimum required flow for safety purposes. If the producers thought that the situation wasn't temporary, they would run an economic slide rule over the operation and shut down in a heartbeat if continued operation didn't make sense. Restarting might take weeks, if restarting were deemed economic. Now is a good time for out-of date and less-efficient-than new/modern facilities to be shut down permanently.

I have worked on more than one facility where this was the case; the wax gelling temperature was above the ambient temperature. One of the sites realised this in design, and included big, over-sized pumps which could apply massive force to the oil in the pipeline, enough to break the gel. Another wasn't so lucky, and basically left a subsea pipeline as a 50 mile-long candle; I think it's still there. (I'm not allowed to tell you which field it is, though!)

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday compelling the nation's meat packing plants, many of which have closed because of COVID-19 outbreaks among workers, to stay open as part of "critical infrastructure" in the United States, administration officials tell ABC News.

The five-page order is two-pronged. A senior administration official said earlier in the day, "from a (Defense Production Act) standpoint, it mandates that critical food supply operations stay open" and second, "from a liability standpoint, we will issue guidance coming from (the Department of Labor) that will provide additional liability protections."

[...]

According to a press release Tuesday from the United Foods and Commercial Workers International Union, at least 20 meatpacking and food processing workers have been confirmed dead and "at least 5,000 meatpacking workers and 1,500 food processing workers have been directly impacted by the virus."

JQH wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:04 pm

Shortage of condoms with lots of people at home with time on their hands ...

I predict a surge in the birthrate in 2021.

And no doubt in the 2080s younsters will be saying what a selfish lot the covid boomers are.