I had a few teaser comments in my post on how Venezuela is cutting off their supply of crude oil to the United States, and I noted the low quality of the crude they export to us, and I touched on the refining requirements to process their oil.

So I thought I’d expand on this a bit and explain the different types of crude oil.

When it comes to crude oil, there are several different varieties, some of which are more familiar than others. For instance, sweet crude refers to hydrocarbons with relatively small amounts of hydrogen …

I’m starting to shift my resources back to expanding my oil and gas business. Not that it has been on autopilot completely, it just hasn’t required much attention lately, which can be attributed to having good people run the day-to-day production.

It’s time for more though, and I’m looking to increase production through additional acquisition or drilling.

This weekend I’ll attend a land auction with five different tracts for sale. Tract four is the one I’m interested in, as it has existing production on a full section, which equals about 640 acres. According to state records, there are five producing …

Venezuela has taken steps to fortify their dominance in the oil and gas market, and has said it will suspend oil shipments to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM: chart, web, Y!). This is an obvious attempt by Hugo Chavez to thumb his nose at the United States, however I’m not sure what his true motivation is: money or power… perhaps both.

You see, the crude oil coming out of Venezuela is heavy crude high in sulfur, making it very difficult to refine in comparison to light sweet crude. The high sulfuric content wreaks havoc on industrial components due to its highly caustic and corrosive …

I bought more Provident Energy (PVX: chart, web, Y!) today, adding another 50 shares to my holdings. Crude oil ($wtic: chart) spiked on the news that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan, and natural gas ($natgas: chart) is holding its own above $7 going into the cold weather season.

I’m playing the trend. I’m in the stock for the dividend, but if the price rises to $13 I’ll definitely take some off the table. 30% price appreciation is too much to pass up, especially when you see it coming. …

My Provident Energy Trust (PVX: chart, web, Y!) has been on the slide since the beginning of November. I can’t figure out why.

The only conclusion I can come to is that it’s attributed to end of year tax selling, but that theory only makes marginal sense. After all, PVX is continuing its CDN$0.12 monthly dividend, and fundamentally, I don’t see why they’d drop the distribution any time soon. Crude oil ($wtic: chart) is still North of $90 per barrel, and natural gas ($natgas: chart) is holding above $7 per MCF….

I’ve always been skeptical of the true value of running a vehicle on ethanol. I feel that the next great propulsive fuel must have a net energy content greater than gasoline. Scientifically, this means that the energy content of a given amount of future fuel must be greater than gasoline. Currently, I believe the prime candidate for this is hydrogen.

But I digress. Back to the ethanol farce.

I came across a Consumer Reports revelation from 2006 presenting the results of their gasoline vs. ethanol tests. They ran a battery of tests on a new (2007) flex-fuel …

There are very few people out there that can seem to justify the near $100 price tag on crude oil. The fundamentals based on supply and demand support levels much lower than $100, leading one to believe that the additional premium on black tea is built on speculation, which tends to be the most volatile trait of a commodity.

So one has to wonder, is it time to short crude?

The next question you might ask, is if so, how? The traditional way to trade oil is through a futures account, which tends to be an expensive endeavor just to set up …

Iranian President Ahmadinejad came out Sunday at the end of a rare OPEC summit stating that OPEC’s members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a “worthless piece of paper.” (It later became clear that the “members” he is referring to is none other than Iran and Venezuela… go figure.)

He went on to blame President Bush’s policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.

In an effort to tag-team the idea, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez jumped in from the sidelines saying “the empire …

Speaking during a Personal MarketWatch interview with senior columnist Chuck Jaffe, Bernard Horn, who runs Polaris Global Value Fund, indicated that companies like Chevron and Chesapeake Energy, while great companies, are not necessarily the stocks to own right now.

His rationale was that the energy stocks in particular, but also the metals stocks, are valued at unsustainable levels of crude and ore prices.

I’ve never been one to consider myself greedy, and this short blurb from MarketWatch.com got me thinking as to whether or not I should start parsing my portfolio of energy.

I’m a firm believer that oil is going …

Yesterday crude oil settled in above $93 per barrel on production problems in Mexico and a weaker dollar.
Pemex, of Mexico, took 600,000 barrels a day off line due to weather. Most of the problem stems from ports being closed, as they are unable to export any more crude and have run out of storage.

The lost production will likely be made up quickly, but it will certainly draw on U.S. inventory levels in the coming weeks, which should further support prices. Crude is up 10% since Wednesday, when the DOE said in its weekly inventory report that stockpiles fell, contrary to analysts’ expectations for a build.

On Wednesday, the Fed may …