Thursday – A Little Personal

~ John W. Howell

I thought I would give a view of our shipping channel which I took this last week.

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This is a large oil tanker moving toward the Port of Corpus Christi to pick up a load of Oil that has come from the Eagle Shale oilfield. This is oil that has been extracted from the shale by the process called fracking. This fracking process is responsible for the low price of oil these days. It is not because of the abundance of oil from the process but the decision of OPEC to reduce the price of oil to make this process too expensive to be practical. The potential for fracked oil was over 30% of the use in the US. That strategy is working since exploration and building of new facilities has been slowed considerably.

On the left is the tail end of a ferry that connects our island to the mainland. The ferry cuts across the shipping channel and usually has to yield to the large tankers.

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You can see the ferries better with this longer shot. Also, you can see a drilling platform to the right. These are built locally and then shipped all over the Gulf. This one has been brought back for rehab  and retrofit for another deployment.

Here is a picture taken from this same spot of a platform heading out to sea after it was manufactured. This was taken a couple of years ago.

 

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And finally a close up. You can see the size as compared to the people on the dock.

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25 thoughts on “Thursday – A Little Personal”

  1. John that was amazing. I’m so glad you shared — especially with your explanations and the older shot that shows the scale of things.
    I’m always fascinated by day-to-day things (that aren’t part of my day). The ordinary things that we realize exist, but they’re out of sight and so out of mind.
    Wishing you a thriving Thursday. Hugs!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. When we first arrived in Port Aransas, I could not understand why we had to take a ferry over such a small distance. Why not build a bridge?

    Then one morning, I watched a platform being towed through the channel… “Oh,” I said to myself, “that’s why.” 🙂

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  6. From what I can gather, Saudi Arabia is losing money on its oil exports at present. Perhaps some of the more expensive extraction methods, as well as postponing the day the world runs out of oil, will somehow serve to put a brake on price rises. Having said that, the speculators will still do their best to distort the prices to suit their own greedy, self-serving agendas. Of that I have no doubt.

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  7. John, thanks for sharing these photos and explanations. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen similar scenes along the Gulf Coast, and frankly, I must say I miss them. Drilling can be dangerous work — I didn’t realize those platforms were moveable!

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