Recently there's been a sudden development here, in the Bay Area (CA). Oil has spiked up to $2.50 per gallon. More importantly, it STINKS at the
pump--sulfur. Gasoline literally comes out smelling like sewage. And, recently, when I picked someone up at the airport, I could smell the big Chevron
refinery miles away--its strong sulfur odor. That means that the old, good quality oil isn't coming out like they want it to, so they're settling
for the suflur containing oil (a lower quality) instead. Like Matthew Simmons' argument about Saudis lying about their oil reserves
www.motherjones.com... , the Saudis apparently can't meet demand with best quality Gawahr
field clean oil.
Something is going on that the press is not talking about. The Chevron refinery near Benicia CA emits a new odor that smells like that goop they put
on a woman's hair to do a permanent: strong, acrid and repulsive. Driving to the airport, we smelled it about five miles away from the Chevron
refinery the first time, but today, just as we began to rise up out of Vacaville (in the big valley in CA) we could smell the Chevron refinery about
15 miles away! I've NEVER smelled it like that before---the same putrid sulfur-containing stink (like a woman's permanent hair treatment).
Pass the word: the stink is out. This may be a major turning point in US oil consumtion. It's bad for business when gas at the pump smells like
sewage. Major retailers wouldn't buy such oil unless it was all they could get. The once reliable Gawahr oil field in Saudi Arabia may be over with.
Here in California, the oil may come straight from the Mideast, where the stinky, suflur containing oil is now being peddled.
Has anyone else noticed the stink at the gas pump, a drastic increase in odors near refineries?