Picto Diary - 28, 29 January 2016 - Cloud Dine
Above: The Bishop and TIMDT. Cloud Dine. Park City Ski Area. 28 January 2016.
(PC 31)
Above: 'Cake, Montage, and Bishop Too. Cloud Dine. Park City Ski Area. 29 January 2016.
I've been enjoying learning the runs around Dreamcatcher, and Iron Mountain lifts, parking in my usual spot near First Time, and taking the QuickSilver gondola over and back.
(PC 32)
Above: Bishop and Bishop Too. Quick Silver Gondola. Park City Ski Area. 29 January 2016.
Above: Mike Belcher, Tesoro Area Marketing Head, speaks to La Societe Deux Magots (LSDM). Wasatch Bagel. Park City, UT. 29 January 2016.
Hat tip: 'Cake.
Note: Note taker fallible. Mistakes are his. Mike Belcher is welcome to make clarifications/corrections to these notes.
Note: Two LSDM oil guys present.... Ohl, former Shell exec, and Pipeline, former exec Williams Pipeline.
Background
Grew up Northern CA.... Santa Cruz
Watsonville, High School.... Dad was a basketball coach.
After a couple of years of junior college at Cabrillo, started working for a petroleum jobber.
Did well working for jobber and was given part ownership of the business... took over the business once jobber passed away.
Ten years ago I started working for Tesoro. We were one of Tesoro's oldest customers.
Tesoro
Tesoro started as a drilling operation in Alaska. 1978 Owners sold the drilling business and bought the Kenai Alaska refinery.
Since, Tesoro has purchased six other refineries and built a retail distribution. Tesoro is a refiner/retailer...a merchant refiner.
We don't have a "crude oil" division or drilling operation dragging us down.
Tesoro has been highly profitable.
Tesoro's Salt Lake City refinery, just behind the Utah state capitol, refines 58K bbl a day. Employs 250.
Other refineries: Kenai, AK, Anacores, WA, Martines, CA, Carson, CA, Wilmington, CA
We operate retail under Tesoro marque; We own most of ARCO retail outlets in CA and NV. Also own USA Petroleum retail outlets.
We are strictly finished product. Tesoro produces jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel.
Other Takeaways
Utah... we are long on gas in the winter and short on gas in the summer.
30% of Salt Lake City refinery production is Rangely (CO) crude. 20% comes from the Uintah basin. Baken crude makes up half.
30% of Salt Lake City refining production is goes to the CA market. We send a lot of our refined product to Las Vegas as well.
We'd prefer to sell all our Salt Lake City refined product in the Wasatch front as we'd rather not pay the pipeline tariff to export.
Keystone pipeline? People less interested today as price of oil has sunk to $30 bbl., below the production cost of the tar sands crude that was to be carried by Keystone. Most analysts see the price of crude rising again in 2016 whereupon interest in Keystone will revive.
Summit County pipeline? Doesn't make sense any more with price of crude as it is. Also, Uinta basin crude reducing as a percent of total crude that we refine in Salt Lake City. When we were considering the pipeline, however, we found citizen resistance strange since it would have eliminated all of the tanker traffic on US 40 and I-80. As a percentage of fuel moved, tanker accidents are far greater contributors to fuel spills than pipeline breaches.
Retail demand going down? No. More people buying pick-ups and SUVs. Premium gas sales going "through the roof."
There is a big spike in demand for "88 clear." Gas refined sans ethanol.
Gas prices set by demand. Sometimes trucks will go five hundred miles away to get cheaper fuel... the economics work for them.
Thank-you
LSDM thanks Mike Melcher for his informative presentation.
La Societe Deux Magots (LSDM) is a non-partisan ROMEO (retired old men eating out) group which meets daily, at 7:00 AM at Wasatch Bagel in Park City, UT. LSDM members are the rightful intellectual heirs of a group of authors (Hemingway, Sartre, Camus, deBouvoir) who met daily at Cafe Deux Magots, in Paris, France in the 1930's.)
Addendum:
Please pass my thanks on to Mr. Mohan. I look forward to finding out about tea growing conditions and if growing is possible in the USA, particularly in a home garden.
Nathans,
Orlando, FL
With its own temperate micro climate and wonderfully ericaceous soil, the Camellia Sinensis thrives in the gardens of southwest England where tea has been successfully and commercially produced. Tregothnan Tea Plantation in Cornwall has been successfully producing tea since 2006. They have numerous varieties
Sent from my iPhone
Oxford Mum,
Devon, UK
The Glenburn First Flush Darjeeling we brought home from Darjeeling is excellent. Unique flavor. Good sans sugar or sweetener.
Israel's catch 22 with regard to working with the Palestinian leadership (whoever that may be) since Arafat turned his back on what many consider a win-win for all, has led to them being demonized as an oppressive occupier with the left taking up for "the oppressed" world wide. Not as much about antisemitism as anti-Israel, but another opportunity for many to "come out" and express their true attitude. College students on many campuses are a typical representation of this thinking.
Teeth,
Basalt, CO
For "Teeth" --
Antisemitism has nothing to do with Left-Right politics; it draws from across the spectrum.
FeeNix,
Phoenix, AZ
Old Mate ... I get an email from you every day which I never get time to read.
Why don't you start a blog and people can go there?
Plus you can earn money from a blog and donate it to saving the forests of se nsw.
Now you have got something from me, attached which is just the beginning.
Writing a long proposal to go with it.
Happy freezing. Enjoying some time on Jervis Bay to write.
Ben and his daughter in the US at the moment snowboarding probably at Park City.
mobile 0435952281
Tree Hugger (in the loveable sense),
Jevis Bay, OZ
Check Facebook. Have Ben Call.