by Joe S (AK) » Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:23 pm
+- a few pennies from $4.00 here in Northern Idaho.
Something to keep in mind:
When we hear "The Current Price per Barrel of Oil" that price is only the "Futures Price". The anticipated real world $ per "barrel" of real time oil in the future rarely made the news.
The """barrel""" of oil that is quoted today is also only 52 US gallons in volume - and it's just a familiar reference that has been in use for a long, long time. We're all familiar with the "new, pretty standard size" drum containing 55 US gallons but Back in the Day, oil drums were actually smaller, the price per gallon was only pennies per gallon and a "standard" 52 gallon measure was easier to compare with former pricing.
So, if you now have 52,000 US gallons of crude oil in a tank that equals "1,000 barrels of oil" using the old standard.
Also, remember that a "barrel" of crude oil ALSO has other post-refining for gasoline things in it, LOTS of other things. Petro-Chemicals are a huge part of the refining industry and are NEVER, EVER mentioned as additional income from crude oil refining. Hundreds of chemicals eventually are pulled from crude oil and used in many, many industries.
It's not as though you're just taking - OH - say, seawater, distilling off the pure water as a final product and not marketing the left over "Sea Salt" at a premium price.
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Many years ago (1968 - 1970+ to be exact) I had the opportunity to frequently visit Central City, Colorado. Of course, Gold was a major part of the area's history and "Back in the Day" a major Gold Rush took place there, giving it the name "The Richest Square Mile on Earth". The miners of the day found that concentrates in their sluices had heavy, grey "stuff" choking their riffles and that it took substantial effort to separate the Gold from that 'Dross'. The Dross was then just returned to the tailings as being of no value.
Shortly afterwards a "Step Above the Rest" miner realized that a lighter portion of some of that heavy 'stuff' was Silver and a second Silver Rush ensued. All the previous workings were carefully run through the sluices a second time and the Silver was carefully separated from some other grey, heavy mineral. Eventually all the tailings were re-worked and everyone left for new opportunities.
Then, someone else realized that the really heavy, grey 'stuff' was a Platinum ore and all the ground was completely reworked for a third time.
Very little of anything was left in the streams when I dipped my pan in there to see if anything was left over.
The last time I traveled through Central City I hardly stopped at all. The gambling industry has taken over and the inner shine of the old buildings and streets was shadowed by the casinos' lights.
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Speaking of the streets - a while before the casinos arrived the few residents of Central City were trying to find a way to pave their streets to encourage tourism. They'd just "had it" with dirt streets that constantly needed expensive repair. The town didn't have enough money to pay for the work - until ............. someone proposed a plan.
For many years wagons and then trucks had moved the local, hard rock mines' riches through the town and on to the railroad, to be sent to crush and refine elsewhere (possibly Blackhawk or maybe Denver?). The roads were always in serious disrepair and bits of the cargo would sometimes fall off into the rough streets and be ground into the dirt. The idea that surfaced was to mine the streets and use the income to pay for the paving work. There have been beautifully paved streets there ever since.
- Joe -
Wiser Mining Through Many, Many Personal Mistakes (OOPS, "Personal Learning Situations")