Editorials

Economics, loopholes, opportunities and uncertainty

FUEL OIL NEWS HAS PROVIDED A LOT of coverage on the Enron loophole over at least the past year. When you look at the price of crude and refined product and follow some general parameters for what supply and demand should generate it becomes obvious that something is artificially adding to that price. The primary culprit being singled out today is the role speculation plays in the process with some of the markets that have less transparency.

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Disturbing news out of New York

A disturbing development was announced on July 19, 2007. Senior executives at Mystic Tank Lines in Astoria, N.Y., and T&S trucking of Brooklyn, N.Y., were brought up on charges of shorting customers to the tune of $75 million in cash over a number of years.

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It’s here — are you ready?

In this issue we kick off our two-part series on biofuels, a topic that I imagine has not escaped the attention of every fuel oil dealer or marketer reading these words.

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The cabin in the woods

As we move into July, our readers, their customers and the Fuel Oil News staff are hopefully getting out of the house a bit to enjoy some good summer weather.

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Enjoy the summer while you can

Well, the summer season is here and unless you happen to be a motor fuels marketer, it might be time for some much-needed relaxation.

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Biofuels continue their march

I first started covering biofuels with the concerns over the additive MTBE, which began to gain momentum in 1999. MTBE caused taste and odor problems in groundwater when gasoline spilled or leaked into the environment, and ethanol was the natural replacement.

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Living up to the legacy

A good friend of mine, Chris Traczek, whom I had worked with for a number of years, recently left the position of editor-in-chief of Fuel Oil News to pursue other opportunities. I wished him well, and then assumed the reins of this fine magazine.

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A fond farewell

I awoke early on the morning of Dec. 27, 1999, with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat, conditions that I’m sure many Americans were also subject to on that long-ago winter’s morn. After all, we...

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Don't get scammed

No one can argue that recent advancements in communication technology have made our lives immeasurable easier. A letter or query that may have taken days to reach its intended target as recently as 20 years ago now can be delivered in a matter of seconds through the use of e-mail.

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In the pink

One of the best things about the holiday season, in addition to the gifts, good food and good times spent with family and friends, is the spirit of giving that most people exhibit at that time of year.

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Covering the bases

After all of the doomsday scenarios that were posited in the run-up, the Oct. 15 deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency’s new 15-ppm ultra-low-sulfur diesel regulations at the retail level came off with barely a ripple as delivery and supply seemed adequate to meet the new mandated demand.

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Reason to smile

Have you seen the smiles? The double takes? The uncontrolled wide-eyed glee? If you have, then that means you’ve probably taken a trip to a gasoline station recently for a fill-up.

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Easy being green

We’ve all seen the commercials: kernels of corn popping into environmentally friendly vehicles that run on ethanol-based E85, in the process reducing our reliance on foreign oil, while making use of a crop that is readily available in our own country.

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A penny saved...

...Could soon become a collector’s item. At least that would be the case if legislation introduced in July by Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., became law.

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Trade deficit

If there's anything we can agree on in this country, it's our love of the underdog. You know, the immigrant who arrives on our shores with only a few dollars in his pocket, but also with an idea and the sheer willpower to turn it into a successful business

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A world view

Having lived my entire life in the United States, I have developed the requisite superiority complex when it comes to the good old U.S. of A.

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Deep trouble

My contact didn’t come with a provocative name like Deep Throat, nor did our meeting occur clandestinely in the bowels of a parking structure beneath Washington, D.C.

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Making sense of chaos

We’ve all heard of, at least in its simplest terms, “chaos theory.” You know, the theory that says that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Brazilian rainforest can set off a chain of atmospheric events that result in a typhoon that devastates Indonesia.

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Irving Oil refines its two billionth barrel

Three major North American HVAC distributors — Behler-Young Company, C.C. Dickson Co., and Temperature Equipment Corporation — have chosen to partner with AirAdvice, Inc., and have made the AirAdvice HVAC-IAQ Program a component of plans to help their contractors increase sales and improve profit margins by tapping into the rapidly growing IAQ market.

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History lesson

Throughout history, innovation has been the impetus for all of the major advances made by man.

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Impending doom?

One of the things that makes a disaster a disaster is that you rarely know when and where it will strike. Even a devastating hurricane, which can bubble and brew in the Atlantic Ocean for weeks before heading toward land, does not make its true intentions known until landfall is made.

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Asset management

Whether you’re a fuel-oil dealer with a small customer base, or a large supplier with thousands of tanks that need to be filled, you’ve probably come to this realization over your years in business: no matter how hard you try, you can’t do it alone.

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Johnson Degree Day creates digital meter

Johnson Degree Day System has introduced the next generation of fuel-demand meter with the release of its new digital meter. This meter takes the functionality of the original JDD meter and updates it to incorporate the latest in digital technology and features.

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Becoming fail-safe

Happy New Year, 2006! Can it really be true that the first decade of the 21st century is already half over? Anyway, I hope that you and yours had a happy and prosperous holiday season, and while I’m sure a few of you are still recovering from those “Welcome to 2006” parties, and at the risk of sounding like a killjoy, I recently read some news that may help sober you up.

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The joy of Sox

If I can beg your indulgence for a moment: THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!!

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Time to pay the piper

Much like the inevitable arrival of winter itself, you knew it was coming. By "it" I mean the predictions that this would be one of the harshest heating seasons in many years in terms of cost to the consumer.

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Some perspective

As August was reaching its close, there was a feeling of giddiness here in Fuel Oil News land as we began to put the final touches on this issue of the magazine, which acknowledges our 70th anniversary. Any magazine, no matter the topic matter, that manages to publish and stay relevant for seven decades needs to be celebrated.

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Back to life

It's said that when parents fight, it's the children who suffer the most. Taking that bromide and applying it to the scheming and machinations of our U.S. Congress as it slogged through the negotiations that resulted in, at last, a new national energy policy last month, it would be hard to blame those involved with the National Oilheat Research Alliance if they had just huddled in a corner and waited for the screaming and yelling to stop.

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Easing the crunch

I know it's easy to scream when the price of a gallon of gasoline approaches $2.50 (as it recently did here in the Midwest) or a gallon of heating oil breaches the $2-per-gallon barrier, but there are ways to combat the price increase.

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Too much of a good thing?

Back in the early 1980s, when the San Francisco Giants were a struggling baseball team trying to attract fans to Candlestick Park, the wind tunnel that they played in at the time, the organization came up with a neat promotion for its diehard fans.

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EPA creates enhanced clean-diesel testing

Testing highway diesel truck and bus emissions will be more accurate, less expensive and more effective under a new in-use testing program announced in June by the Environmental Protection Agency.

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A call to duty

First of all, let me say how disappointed I was that I missed all of you at the Atlantic Region Energy Expo the week of April 18 in Atlantic City. Judging from the comments I’ve heard and pictures that associate publisher Dave Campbell took, it was readily apparent that AREE 2005 lived up to its well-earned reputation as a great show (see page 46 for a complete roundup).

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A breath of fresh air

When you get right down to it, the most basic building block of our existence is the air we breath. If forced, we can go without food and water for several days. If you choose, you can exist without any type of human interaction for months or years. But if we’re deprived of oxygen for a mere handful of minutes, it’s lights out.

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It’s a Web site!

Like expectant fathers pacing a hospital waiting

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A worthy cause

Unfortunately, all too often the only time people from diverse cultures and backgrounds are brought together is when they are rallying around a common cause. Even more often, that cause is often preceded by a disaster, either natural or manmade.

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Waiting and hoping

With all of the nation’s political pundits taking a post-election crack at predicting just what Pres. Bush’s re-election, coupled with the increasingly Republican tilt of the new 109th Congress, which reports for work this month, means for our country, they’ve lost sight that the 108th Congress left behind some unfinished business.

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A Fallen Star?

The first measurable snow had not yet covered the ground and the initial sub-zero temperature was still to be recorded, but the 2004-05 heating season started with a bang anyway with the news in late October that Stamford, Conn.-based Star Gas, L.P., and its subsidiary, Petroleum Heat & Power Co., Inc. (Petro), was being sued for misleading its investors.

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