u/sub-a-dub-dub

Im getting ready to do my fourth annual 100% play through and it got me thinking about playstyles, and what is the “right” way to do it.

For two of the last play throughs I completed finding packages as the number one priority when each island became available. This seems almost too easy for me now so I am going to attempt it by saving the hidden packages for the end.

What are your playstyles? Are their certain things you do/dont do to make it easier or harder?

I think its worth while discussing the SPR from a technical perspective. I spent close to twelve years working for E Mobil, no, thats far too obvious. Exxon M. Anyways, most of my time working directly for them as an employee was spent in upstream heavy oil as a plant operator, and a few years in downstream as an operator at a refinery. There are a few things about the current situation with Hormuz, the SPR, and the oil industry that concerns me.

First, the SPR. Maybe I am dumb but I cant find what type of crude is inventoried in the SPRs multiple sites and multiple caverns. I can find data on what the drawdown rates are for sweet and sour crudes, and the individual maximum capacities for sweet and sour. I can also find where the refill rate is 225,000bbl/d… The question, and concern, here is what is the inventory amounts of sweet/sour and light/mid/heavy crudes? On top of that, something worth noting, is mid and light crudes have a higher value than heavier feedstocks because you can do more like make gasoline easier. This is why I want to know the breakdown of what type is in the caverns because if the SPR is at, say 350mmbbl, which can be an “okay” level, if theres only 50mmbbl left of mid/light then were in real trouble. 

Second, more SPR, but operational bottoms/useable volume.  What would be the no go level for drawdown? Tank bottoms can be absolutely whacked out unusable feed. In my upstream experience, around 15% is the pay attention level in tankage because anything below that may start pumping product with high solids and/or water content. Solids can be very very bad for catalysts. So the SPR could have a useable volume that could, say, restrict drawdowns to leave 100mmbbl left behind because anything below that may have higher water, solids, or even salt content that cannot be managed. So where is this level at?

Not every refinery can handle light, or heavy, or sweet, or sour crudes. Swinging crudes can take up to two weeks, maybe longer and thats IF a plant can handle a different feed. On top of that, if the supply of a feedstock a refinery can actually handle has depleted, and the refinery has to go in to safe park or total shutdown, it could be multiple days or a month before it could be fully restarted. I worked at a refinery that did around 150mbbl a day and it took almost two weeks to restart post shutdown. So, yeah, 2,3,4,500,000 barrel a day plant would and could be longer. If plants start going offline because of feed concerns, restart times when feed reliably returns is gonna be not short.

On the topic of refining, late summer is traditional shutdown season in the EM world. So, there is a real chance shutdown planners may bump that up sooner OR take advantage of feed supply issues to prolong outages and tackle bigger items leaving refining offline longer. HOWEVER with a low barrel price, downstream would be printing money at a supersonic rate so these outages and shutdowns may be delayed which can just kick this can down the road.

I do not believe that all these Bloombergs and Axioses and other “projections” of a “glut” really understand all these considerations. ESPECIALLY the one that each SPR site, according to their 2022 annual publications, understand that most SPR sites have a maximum refill rate of 225,000bbl/d. In other words, you can take out a million barrels today from one site but it will take you four days to refill those same barrels. COOL! 

If Hormuz starts flowing tomorrow and the US goes to refill the SPR, thats almost a million barrels a day thats off the private market which in turn can artificially inflate the oil demand for damn near three to four years… The media is some stupid for suggesting peace deals are used to refill the SPR before bombing. Yeah. It took half a day of drawing down to supply a days worth of refining capacity for one major plant, but two whole days to refill that same amount. Thats not “buying time“ LOL

tl:dr what crudes are in the SPR and is the good stuff almost gone? Has it been considered how much another milly barrel a day buyer will change the price? What are operational level constraints where quality of the crude from the SPR drops off?

PS Exxon was awesome when Rex Tillerson ran it. Uncle Rex knew what he was doing. But the new guy has turned EM in to an unrecognizable buzzword factory with a penchant for racing to the bottom. Glad I am gone. 

Years ago Donut did a video on the Corvette and they discussed how GM experimented with an overhead cam V8. This was pre Lotus ZR-1, around 87 or 88. I remember finding some other literature that supported that story and supported that the consensus was the OHV L83 and L98 produced torque sooner than the experimental OHC V8. What would cause the torque to come alive sooner in comparison to a S/DOHC engine?

Aside from the known benefits of OHV V8s being smaller packages, lighter, simpler, what other actual technical benefits, like torque production if its true, does the OHV engine have? Im not looking to start a OHC vs OHV flame war here lol engines are application specific and I agree that S/DHOC engines can offer a wide range of abilities as well.

edited a typo

Years ago Donut did a video on the Corvette and they discussed how GM experimented with an overhead cam V8. This was pre Lotus ZR-1, around 87 or 88. I remember finding some other literature that supported that story and supported that the consensus was the OHV L83 and L98 produced torque sooner than the experimental OHC V8. What would cause the torque to come alive sooner in comparison to a S/DOHC engine?

Aside from the known benefits of OHC V8s being smaller packages, lighter, simpler, what other actual technical benefits, like torque production if its true, does the OHC V engine have? Im not looking to start a OHC vs OHV flame war here lol engines are application specific and I agree that S/DHOC engines can offer a wide range of abilities as well.

My wife has Polycystic Liver Disease and just got added to the transplant list a few days ago. We dont know when she will be selected for surgery but we want to prep and have whatever we can prepared. So far I have seen maternity pillows are quite popular, but what else around the house would help? Toilet grab bars? Shower seat?