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Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid fuel that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash point of approximately 107 °F and oils burned in cotton or wool-wick burners. In this sense, diesel is a type of fuel oil.

Fuel oil is made of long hydrocarbon chains, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatics.

Oil has many uses; it heats homes and businesses and fuels trucks, ships and some cars. A small amount of electricity is produced by diesel, but it is more polluting and more expensive than natural gas. It is often used as a backup fuel for peaking power plants in case the supply of natural gas is interrupted or as the main fuel for small electrical generators.

Residual fuel oil is less useful because it is so viscous that it has to be heated with a special heating system before use and it may contain relatively high amounts of pollutants, particularly sulfur, which forms sulfur dioxide upon combustion. However, its undesirable properties make it very cheap.

In fact, it is the cheapest liquid fuel available. Since it requires heating before use, residual fuel oil cannot be used in road vehicles, boats or small ships, as the heating equipment takes up valuable space and makes the vehicle heavier.

Fuel oil is transported worldwide by fleets of oil tankers making deliveries to suitably sized strategic ports such as Houston, Singapore, Fujairah, Balboa, Cristobal, Sokhna (Egypt), Algeciras and Rotterdam. Where a convenient seaport does not exist, inland transport may be achieved with the use of barges. Lighter fuel oils can also be transported through pipelines. The major physical supply chains of Europe are along the Rhine.

via chartsbin.com

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Source: http://enigma.io/labs/north-dakota-boom-to-bust/

The Boom

Beginning in 2006, oil rigs began sprouting up across North Dakota. With is driven by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, oil and profit flowed freely. As the rest of the United States ambled through the recession, thousands of high-paying jobs opened up in the state’s oil fields. For years, North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Giddy reports prophesied decades of oil prosperity.

The Bust
Since 2015, the outlook has changed. Falling oil prices mean falling revenues, and as profits continue to slide – despite ongoing rises in production – the recent unemployment spike in North Dakota oil country looks less like a blip, and more like the beginning of the end.

The origin
It began here. In 2006, a petroleum geologist named Michael Johnson discovered an oil field in Parshall, North Dakota, a town in the state’s northwest corner. He had tapped into the Bakken shale formation, the source of an estimated 7.4 billion barrels of oil.
As drilling expanded, young workers flocked to small communities like Parshall to seek their fortunes, often living in hastily-constructed “man camps” – these towns had not been built for such a rapid influx of new residents. Williston, North Dakota, had a population of 14,700 according to the 2010 Census. By 2015, the town had grown to 26,977. Demand for housing soared; at one point, it was more expensive to rent an apartment in Williston than in New York or San Francisco.
Environmental degradation is another consequence of the boom. Natural gas comes to the surface as a result of oil drilling. Thanks to a lack of pipeline infrastructure to move the gas out of state for sale, producers burn off what they can’t sell locally. Over the ten year span we investigated, companies sold about 72% of the 2.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas extracted, leaving a staggering 692 billion cubic feet to store, or more often, burn. Based on EIA data, that amount would supply North Dakota homes with natural gas for more than six years.

Despite bounties, revenues slide
Unemployment in oil counties is at a ten-year high. While the national unemployment rate through the extent of the financial crisis averaged 6.7%, it included rates upward of 15% in hard-hit states like Michigan. On the other hand, North Dakota oil counties maintained an astounding average 2.93% unemployment rate, with one county, Slope, reporting an average 1.59% from December 2007 through June 2009. Now in 2016, the rate has jumped up over the 4% mark, on a trajectory that looks to meet a national average that has slowly sunk below 5%.
While the “man camps” may be filtering out, North Dakota is not out of oil. In 2015, McKenzie County (the focus of the map, at left) was pumping between 11 and 13.5 million barrels per month from the earth, and between 18 and 23 billion cubic feet of gas. Despite pumping out 20M more barrels in 2015, estimated revenue for 2015 was $4.5B less than in 2014.
The “boom and bust” narrative is not new, and the trend in McKenzie is no fluke. It is perhaps instead an indicator of what is to come: North Dakota will continue to pursue rapid extraction – but with diminishing returns.

Via www.enigma.io/labs/north-dakota-boom-to-bust

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House prices to earnings ratio (2002 – 2018)

Affordability ratios computed by dividing residence prices by gross annual wages, based on the median of both house prices and wages. A higher ratio means that on average, it is less affordable for a citizen to buy a house in their neighborhood district. Annual estimates of wages are based on the tax year that ended on 5th April in the reference year and relates to workers on adult rates of pay who have been in the same job for more than a year.

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