North Dakota Sweet Crude Oil Hits $17.51/Barrell

• December 27, 2008

“Sour” crude, which per my layman’s understanding is more expensive to produce and refine, is trading at 11.51.

The ND oil prices started the month around $30/barrel and have plummeted since then. Which is scary because that’s happening during the holiday travel season.
This is troubling because the budget-busting spending plan Governor Hoeven just proposed – which increases the state’s general fund spending by 26% – is based on tax revenues from oil prices that are at least $40/barrel according to Lt. Governor Jack Dalrymple.
Now, oil prices can and will probably come up again. But what these current low prices, which don’t show any indication of going up right now, indicate is just how dangerous a game we’re playing with all this additional spending in the state. If oil prices stay low we’re simply not going to be able to afford all of this new spending the Governor wants to do.
What would be smart is if we gave North Dakotans some significant tax relief and then ride the additional economic activity that relief spurs until we’re seeing tax revenues that aren’t so dependent upon oil taxes. But unfortunately it doesn’t appear as though anyone in the Governor’s office, and not many in the legislature, are interested in exercising any common sense.
It seems as though we’re just going to keep spending irresponsibly with no thought to what the future could hold.

Tags: Domestic Issues, North Dakota News, Politics

http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

These lazy, greedy clowns will just pass another tax scam which will victimize those in the private sector, like they did back in 2001.
welder4

another bright idea is in New York where they are charging just a 18% tax on sugar sweetened soft drinks , truth be known the sugar is better then the artificial sweeteners and the sugar ones made from high fructose corn syrup , It is a democrat theory that if you tax the regular soft drinks you will encourage one to drink the diet types,. I have never seen any one that was slim drinking diet soda so there fore it must be fattening .HFCS has been slightly linked to diabetes and we have a great amount of that going on, almost an epidemic, I believe the junk science guy Steven Miloy has some information on it not bringing in the tax they expect it to, why do they adjust their budget to accommodate the tax on the reg soda. ?? I don’t have an answer for the light crude in ND , but it could be the foreign oil is a different grade ,the cost of transport could be another reason for the difference.
http://sayanythingblog.com/ likwidshoe

Democrats disagree with you. They say that spending only what one takes in and letting the citizens KEEP their own money is a “failed” ideology.
Spartacus

Spartacus, I’m no expert, but I think even ND’s sweet crude is difficult to refine.

I can appreciate that Rob, we can build refineries to handle our domestic crude, we’ve done that before. But still I cannot understand why the international price for crude must be nearly 5X the cost of domestic crude and even then our enviro-whackos refuse to give up a few thousand useless acres that even the surviving body crabs left over from the Dead Heads don’t want to inhabit to build a few refineries that meet existing regs, perplexing!
http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/ Chief RZ

Simple supply and demand, compounded by a few greedy speculators. We should not bail out the greedy speculators.
Spartacus

Drifting away from the intent of the topic, I’m wondering why ND sweet is so cheap when the NYMEX lists at about $37.70. I own stock in a dry bulk shipping company, therefore I know shipping rates have tanked, even for crude shippers, so transportation can’t cover the cost difference. Does the domestic oil yield less desirable product after refining? Why were we buying $140/bbl foreign crude when there was less expensive domestic crude available?
http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

Simple supply and demand, compounded by a few greedy speculators.

Without speculators, there is no free market.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

Obviously if the price of ND oil is at rock bottom John Hoeven must be to blame.

As ridiculous as that sounds (and it is) it’s no more ridiculous as Hoeven taking credit for HIGH oil prices and his sycophants in the media agreeing with him.
Matt

I have tertiary syphilis.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Spartacus, I’m no expert, but I think even ND’s sweet crude is difficult to refine.

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North Dakota Sweet Crude Oil Hits $17.51/Barrell

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