The argument among those marketers and retailers that have embraced the fuel is that E15 fuel allows them to market a cleaner-burning, higher-octane fuel that can technically be used by more than 200 million cars on the road today, and it can typically cost less than the E10 competitors are selling.
After plunking down more than $2.5 billion for drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, ConocoPhillips and other companies have quietly relinquished claims they once hoped would net the next big oil discovery.
“[Americans] love oil. We love gas. We’re a mobile society. And I’m not too worried about the so-called glut because we will eventually use it up,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s physically possible for us to ever get to a point where we don’t need to import certain types of crude,” Suzanne Minter, Oil & Natural Gas analyst at Platts Analytics, told CNBC.
“I personally feel that we need to have more flex-fuel vehicles that can, in fact, use different mixes of petroleum-based fuels and alcohol-based fuels.”
Market watcher Dennis Gartman said Tuesday that U.S. oil prices may move to a premium over Brent because of the Canadian wildfire, which is weighing heavily on North American output.
The billionaire oil investor recently made headlines for declaring, at a Manhattan dinner, that the industry is “dead in the water.” That said, it won’t be forever, says Pickens.
A recent study by Santa Monica–based think tank RAND Corporation concludes that ExxonMobil’s Torrance outage cost California drivers nearly $2.4 billion at the pump.
When Elon Musk said last week that Tesla Motors aims to roll out 500,000 vehicles by 2018, plenty of folks on Wall Street immediately voiced their doubts. Add Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas to that list.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to replace its once-influential oil minister is being viewed widely as the latest effort of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to consolidate power and pursue what one analyst has called a “brutal battle for market access against arch regional rival Iran.”
