
I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil - sergeant3
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time-i-tried-to-buy-some-crude-oil
======
comex
Another notable excerpt from the linked state safety agency document
([http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.do...](http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis_wsh_cet5041_90142_7.doc)):

\--

Two employees of a fertilizer company in Riga, Michigan, were assigned to
install a new float valve in an old 35-foot deep cistern for a new 300-foot
well. This cistern was covered with a concrete slab with entry through a
covered manhole. The first worker entered the cistern and as he reached a
plank platform six feet below the opening, he was instantly overcome and fell
unconscious into the water below. The man on the surface immediately ran to
the nearby plant for help. Several workmen responded and two of them entered
the cistern to render aid. They met the fate of the first worker. A passerby
who had been drawn to the scene by the crowd which had gathered was told by an
excited bystander that several men in the cistern were drowning. Upon hearing
this, he shouted, "I can swim, I can swim" and pulled away from a company
employee who was trying to restrain him. Now there were four bodies in the
well.

Shortly afterward the fire department arrived at the scene with proper rescue
equipment. The fire chief entered the cistern wearing a self-contained
breathing apparatus. After reaching the plank platform, he removed his face
mask to shout instructions to those on the surface and he, too, was instantly
overcome. All five persons died in the cistern.

Tests of the cistern atmosphere revealed that H2S in a concentration of about
1000 parts per million was present when the five deaths occurred. The water
pumped up from the deep well contained dissolved hydrogen sulfide which was
released in the unventilated cistern.

~~~
ptaipale
Shit kills. I guess this happens everywhere in the world, but over here
(Finland), there are the occasional deaths at farms where H2S released from
remains of cow manure, stored in a tank, kills people.

[https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf](https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf)

"Description of event

A farm-owner suffocated inside a manure tank which was lacking oxygen and
contained toxic gases. Also his brother, who went in to help, died.

A tank of liquid-form manure was almost empty. A pipe at the bottom of the
tank was blocked. The farm owner decided to enter the tank and finalize
emptying the tank. However, he lost consciousness and fell to the bottom.

His brother, who was close by, saw what happened and went in to save the
unconscious man, but he was also overcome in a moment. Four hours later a
family member discovered the victims. Fire service was called to help, and
with pressure air breathing equipment, they retrieved both men. They were both
found to be dead. Cause of death was a poisoning by methane and hydrogen
sulfide."

(Taken from farm advisory leaflet on manure
[https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf](https://www.mela.fi/sites/default/files/lietelanta.pdf)
)

~~~
prawn
Another case involving pig shit.

"The lagoons themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in
it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma
was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the
side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker
making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes,
another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another
instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the
fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was
overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome,
the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then
the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit."

Tough way to go.

From this excellent, long-form piece on Rolling Stone:
[http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/boss-hog-the-
dark-s...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/boss-hog-the-dark-side-of-
americas-top-pork-producer-20061214)

~~~
neuronic
Ok this is going to sound silly, and I apologize if this isn't a nice
contribution.

But I believe to have read quite a while back that H2S is why poop stinks so
bad for us. It can lead to anoxic events:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event#Hydrogen_sulfide_emissions)

So evolutionary speaking we might have adjusted our olfactory sense to stay
clear of any H2S sources.

------
strictnein
On a related note, the (slightly stylized) retelling of a time a commodities
trader accidentally bought actual coal:

[http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-
Delivery](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery)

~~~
scarletham
> slightly stylized

Or "completely made up"

~~~
jacquesm
The giveaway would be the WTFSE, only that actually seems to be a real
exchange.

~~~
mortehu
The stories on that site almost always use placeholders. For example, the most
recent post features an email from wtfinc.com.

------
33W
Planet Money had a recent podcast titled "The Onion King", where someone took
physical control of onion futures, and why that is the one type of future
outlawed by congress.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/10/14/448718171/episode-657-the-
tale-of-the-onion-king)

~~~
andyjohnson0
_" and why that is the one type of future outlawed by congress"_

I was intrigued enough to follow this up, although I didn't listen to the
podcast. From wikipedia:

During the hearings, the Commodity Exchange Authority stated that it was the
perishable nature of onion which made them vulnerable to price swings. Then-
congressman Gerald Ford of Michigan sponsored a bill, known as the Onion
Futures Act, which banned futures trading on onions. The bill was unpopular
among traders, some of whom argued that onion shortages were not a crucial
issue since they were used as a condiment rather than a staple food. The
president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, E.B. Harris, lobbied hard
against the bill. Harris described it as "Burning down the barn to find a
suspected rat". The measure was passed, however, and President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the bill in August 1958. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kosuga#Regulatory_acti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Kosuga#Regulatory_action)

~~~
SixSigma
> since they were used as a condiment rather than a staple food

such an unstaple food that The Times of India has a page dedicated to track
the price of onions

[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Onion-
prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Onion-prices)

~~~
strictnein
My first snarky response was: "Do they also track beef prices?"

But yes, they do (sort of): [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Beef-
prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Beef-prices)

But then I wondered if those pages were auto-generated, so I tried other
things: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Taco-
prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Taco-prices)

Ok, how about non-food: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Obama-
prices](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Obama-prices)

Yeah, it's kind of free form: [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Why-
Am-I-A-Pickle](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Why-Am-I-A-Pickle)

The first time you specify something unique, it takes a little bit to load,
but then it's caching it.

~~~
SixSigma
I found it by searching Google. I think the articles it lists illustrate my
wider point that onion prices are a concern to multi-billions of people.

------
kyleblarson
I worked at a small quant fund and we once had a bug that caused our roll
forward trade to fail on a rather large position of front month WTI contracts.
We technically were going to have to take delivery since we were long the
contracts at expiry, but our brokerage was nice enough to fix the situation
for us.

~~~
jallmann
This is a recurring nightmare of mine: forgetting to close out a commodity
futures contract, then suddenly having 20,000 bushels wheat (or whatever it
was) show up on my doorstep one morning. Brrrr.

~~~
oxryly1
Ok, in the commodities trading business there have GOT to be stories of this
sort of thing happening.

~~~
slyall
[http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-
Delivery](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery)

Edit: Oops, somebody already posted, later in the thread.

~~~
oxryly1
Ok, neat story, certainly.

But is there any indication that it isn't completely fictional?

Edit: similar info here
[http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/futures-...](http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/futures-
contracts-expiration-soybeans-eggs-oil/9/21/2009/id/24547)

It seems these stories tend to be apocryphal. Oh well.

------
cheriot
The best example I've seen of this form of journalism was NPR's purchase of a
"toxic asset" during the financial crisis.

[http://www.npr.org/series/124587240/planet-money-s-toxic-
ass...](http://www.npr.org/series/124587240/planet-money-s-toxic-
asset/archive)

------
teddyg1
I did this recently as well (though for a different purpose, chemical
testing). it's even more difficult than the journalist describes. No refinery
wants to stop processing or halt flow in their pipelines, and so getting WTI
or Bakken oil is immensely difficult when you're not at the source. There are
small mom & pop ~2-3bbl/day producers who are willing to sell their oil at a
premium, however.

Ventilation is a huge problem - H2S emits a very foul smell. Quickly open and
close a small bottle of crude in a room, and the scent lingers for a few
minutes or more.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You don't need to stop anything to fill a sample bottle.

>Ventilation is a huge problem - H2S emits a very foul smell.

H2S also deadens the olfactory nerves, or something to that effect so that one
does not notice if the concentration increases gradually.

~~~
teddyg1
>You don't need to stop anything to fill a sample bottle.

Gotcha. I had trouble reaching people who were willing to do sampling, which
led me to that conclusion.

>H2S also deadens the olfactory nerves

Going back to check my ventilation right now, haha. From what I know, the
scent disappears only above concentrations in air of ~150-200ppm.

------
chrisBob
At work we have recently been working with an oil company. Even on a project
fully funded by this oil company it took us _months_ to convince them to send
us a few bottles containing about 100mL each. Getting rock samples from their
oilfield, which is what they really want us to do tests on, was _much_ harder.

------
carsonreinke
Just buy it on Alibaba
[[http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_...](http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=100110&SearchText=crude+oil)].

~~~
teddyg1
Those minimum orders are astronomical it's almost funny. Does anybody actually
purchase manufacturing-level quantities of goods on alibaba? Genuinely asking.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes. Alibaba is indirectly responsible for _many_ containerloads of goods
traveling from the east to the west.

~~~
pjc50
How do people handle QC issues with Alibaba orders? I dipped my toe in when
ordering a crate of allegedly "CE marked" chargers that turned out to be
obviously unsafe, and haven't been back.

~~~
sachingulaya
You receive samples first and check them. Another option is having an agent in
find on your behalf perform QC before you pay the balance on your initial
deposit. That's what I do..

~~~
toomuchtodo
How do you find an agent to perform QC?

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You send someone like me to China, after you do what GP said to do.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Completely offtopic: Many moons ago, you emailed me advice for Burning Man.
Before I forget again, I just wanted to say thank you so much.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I had forgotten that was you. I'm glad it worked out well. Thanks for
remembering.

------
bigethan
Relatedly(?) When I had a diesel car, I bought and stored a small barrel of
biodiesel in the basement of our apartment (saving like $0.05 a gallon!). I
was told that diesel doesn't burn except under extreme pressure, and that you
could throw a match into an open cup of diesel and it would just go out.

Never actually tested that out.

~~~
david-given
You can throw a match into an open cup of _cold_ diesel and it'll go out.

But if the cup gets hot, diesel vapour will start coming off the top, which
will ignite. If you're unlucky it'll produce enough heat to vapourise more
diesel, etc.

Also, if you let the cold diesel touch cloth, it'll get wicked up, and the
diesel-soaked cloth will ignite really easily. That will in turn generate
enough heat to etc.

The same applies to paraffin (although to a rather lesser extent). It's a
great fuel for camping and sailing, because it's nearly inert... but only
nearly so. A puddle of paraffin in the bottom of your boat isn't a problem. A
puddle of paraffin spilt on your cabin upholstery is a serious fire risk.

~~~
e12e
Ah, fond memories of playing with candles. Make enough "wick" of thin metal
wire, and at some point the flame will boil off gases from the candle/pool of
melting paraffin wax. At this point, cheap glassware will likely crack from
the heat -- spilling hot wax over the table, likely igniting it - best advice
is to quench the flame before it gets to that. Or so I've heard.

~~~
david-given
Fun fact: standard cheapo tea lights make great fire lighters, because they
burn reliably and provide a static heat source for a long period of time. Put
one under a piece of wood and it'll most likely catch fire eventually.

A short time later the wax in the tea light melts. Than it boils. Then you get
(briefly) a pillar of flame...

------
nosuchthing

      Enterprising Child Saves $54 To Buy Barrel Of Oil
    

[http://www.theonion.com/graphic/enterprising-child-
saves-54-...](http://www.theonion.com/graphic/enterprising-child-saves-54-to-
buy-barrel-of-oil-9552)

------
drcode
Would be great for parties though:

"Hey, what's that thing in pantry?"

"Oh, that's just my barrel of crude oil."

~~~
dclowd9901
Everybody dies lol

------
stcredzero
I bought a tiny bottle of crude oil from Drake's Well near Titusville,
Pennsylvania as a grade school kid. We used it as furniture polish and for
various things around the house. (Drake's Well was the original oil well.)

------
SeanDav
I was pleasantly surprised at the subtle humour in this article, although some
of it does require a bit of insider knowledge to fully appreciate!

------
iheartmemcache
Not in petrochemicals, but neither is this is this reporter. I get it, it's
supposed to be a joke, but it's such a poorly executed one fraught with so
many major components glossed over that it detracts from any humor the article
could have had. When the Onion writes something, it's humor is wonderful
because not only the wit is there but there are few if any inconsistencies
even for pedants who dissect things such as I.

1000ppm of hydrogen sulfide surely can kill you. The work-around this is to
take delivery of a barrel of "sweet" rather than "sour" crude. Even in the
"sour form", you get "up to" 1000ppm. However, barrels 1) are sealed properly
by institutions with safety regulatory agencies just like any other industry,
and 2) to get H2S exposure at that rate, you'd have to effectively stick your
head into a barrel and inhale directly. To calculate actual PPM you'd likely
be exposed to, you'd have to evaluate the aromatic distribution of H2S. (see:
Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms, Chapter 2). The journalist is
right about the insurance policies.

She later even mentions she has sweet crude. :facepalm:

>> My boss insists that I must factor in the cost of lost productivity for the
many minutes spent on the phone with FedEx in an attempt to trace the package
as it zigzagged across Manhattan. On that basis, I’m probably already in the
red.

Bloomberg - I love your reporting for what it is. Tom crushes it in the
morning. Alyx Steel makes poignant remarks. BBC doesn't try to be The Daily
Show. Stick at what you're good at & don't try to be VICE. Especially for
someone who reports on finance, she's overlooking so many things. Insurance
she mentioned earlier but didn't bother to mention factor that capex. Storage
is an opex (she mentions consignment venues (tech analogy: co-locating your
servers) but those are fees she didn't factor in). In real life, if she's
arbitraging US oil, the journo needs to be a CME member. For a March maturity
date, a ~3 mo membership lease is $1k as an opex.

* Further reading:

"Petroleum and Gas Field Processing", et al. Chapter 7: Crude Oil
Stabilization and Sweetening

"Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms" V.N. Kondratie, et al. Chapter
2 (or there abouts).

Merck on pulmonary irritants:
[http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary-
disorders...](http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary-
disorders/environmental-pulmonary-diseases/irritant-gas-inhalation-injury)

CME fees: [http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-
pricin...](http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-pricing-cme-
lease-prices.html)

Edit: To anyone who's downvoting me, by all means please respond (with some
cordiality if you would), as to why! I tried to cite my sources properly, but
if any professionals who deal with futures (especially crude oil, and even
more so those who have taken delivery or performed the arbitrage she
"simulated") see anything factually incorrect, I'm really happy to be
corrected.

Edit 2: I responded as to why I found this article so aggravating below.
Please read it before you down-vote me. It's comparable to how frustrated my
tech friends and I get when television shows cross the threshold of comical
technical inaccuracy and progress into a zone of visceral opposition. HN
traditionally had a "Don't downvote people solely because you disagree with
them" policy. My remarks are relevant to the article and (to my knowledge)
factually correct.

~~~
benten10
To reply with the response such posts usually get: You must be _really_ fun at
parties!

This post was entertaining to most of us because we are not in the industry,
knew little about the presence of hydrogen sulfide, and did not realize that
the industry was so reluctant to sell to random interested buyers. Yes they
could have written "This reporter tried to buy a barrel of oil, but sellers
were reluctant, and it was calculated that individuals buying crude oil is not
a profitable venture. She was also cautioned that Hydrogen sulfide is toxic,
and is released by crude oil". They chose not to do that because, well --
that's not fun to read.

You are being downvoted because you are essentially telling us: 'you idiots,
this is not funny, this is not news, this is stupid, there are smarter people
there doing serious work, why waste your time on this' in extended form.

One might be well suggested to, as they say, 'cheer up'.

~~~
iheartmemcache
Bloomberg is a really targeted news institution on which people rely for not
comedy but financial information. It's reflected in the fees you pay to get
access to their terminals, it's reflected in their promos, and even the
corporations who select to advertise with them know they're trying to hit a
target reader. Usually, that reader is not someone looking for a comic laugh.

Imagine pulling up a Linux news site and seeing something that's funny to
someone who is in marketing because of some wacky antics. You went there to
see what sort of critical patches need to be administered, but instead you saw
"What happened when I tried to install Linux on my leather shoes!".

I'm upset because context is important. Especially for news outlets which are
called the fourth estate for a reason. When I turn on PBS Newshour I don't
want 50 minutes of Paris Hilton. If they re-oriented an entire episode to
cover Paris Hilton just to get more viewers (equivalent of click-bait), I'd be
equally upset. I'm not calling anyone here stupid, but this clearly is not
news.

"This post was entertaining" \-- that's my whole problem. Bloomberg is a news
outlet. Jon Stewart went on the O'Reilly factor and eloquently articulated the
problem with select subsets of media (oversimplified to "to fill 24 hours of
content, some outlets have resorted to silly antics to increase/retain
viewership rather, rather than do what they're supposed to -- report the
news). This article was under "News" not "Op/ed".

RE: parties, again, context. I don't engage in pedantry there, because one can
generally categorize that form of interaction as "social" rather than
"news/informative". At which point, I politely engage in small talk until I
find something they like which I find interesting (whether its model aircrafts
or modern farming, I can find something interesting to talk about with anyone
generally).

~~~
whatok
Just a FYI but Bloomberg has significantly changed their editorial direction
recently. Think some senior editor left or something. I really don't mind
because it does not seem that their standard news coverage has suffered as a
result and I can easily avoid things but yeah.

------
maxerickson
Just for comparisons sake, 1000 PPM is a good deal higher than the carbon
dioxide content of the atmosphere, which is ~345 PPM.

------
tripzilch
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but about the profit angle. This is her job,
right? Doing research on stuff and writing an article about it. Given the
other arguments in the article, I think it would be fair to say the pay for
the article should also factor into the profit/less equation :)

------
ptaipale
BTW, thanks for putting me on track to notice one interesting aspect about
H2S:

"In 2015, hydrogen sulfide under extremely high pressure (around 150
gigapascals) was found to undergo superconducting transition near 203K (-70
°C), the highest temperature superconductor known to date."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide)

------
MrJagil
How is it possible for the workers in There Will Be Blood to hack through a
foot of oil to get to the vein, if a few seconds of exposure kills you?

~~~
VLM
Its not a contact poison but a breathed in poison, so given even the lightest
breeze you're probably OK. In a sealed tank, of course, you're dead.

Also there is no such thing as the crude molecule or atom. Its like dirt, and
I assure you not all dirt is equal. And some crude has so much sulfur you'd
think it should be yellow like paint. Some has about none.

If you've ever heard economic discussion about "sour crude" now you know what
they're talking about. If you build a refinery to process oil you don't waste
money on a hydrotreater to eat the sulfur if you don't have to, then if the
market floods with cheap worthless sour crude you can't process it without
buying/building a hydrotreater cycle process. And they aren't cheap or built
in a day, either.

------
FeepingCreature
> All was not lost, however. If a barrel of crude oil would kill me, a small
> amount would certainly make me stronger, I suggested (inanely) to the
> broker. It was at this point, I believe, that the broker gave up.

This is gold. (Well, no. It's oil.)

------
esfandia
Noob question: say I have $1000 that I want to invest in oil (not in an oil
company, but in the commodity itself). How do I go about it? Judging by the
article, buying actual oil isn't the way to go.

~~~
uraza
If you had more money, you could trade futures, which are mentioned in the
article. If you sell the future before the date of delivery, then you never
have to deal with the physical aspect of the commodity. There are lots of
online brokerages you can use for this, for example, E*Trade and TradeStation.
But they have higher minimums than $1000.

With $1000, you could trade ETFs, for example USO [0]. The account minimums
for ETFs are lower. If you look at what's inside USO [1], it's basically a
wrapper for a future (NYMEX WTI Crude Oil CL).

[0]:
[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:USO](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:USO)

[1]:
[http://www.unitedstatescommodityfunds.com/holdings.php?fund=...](http://www.unitedstatescommodityfunds.com/holdings.php?fund=uso)

------
prantarFreundly
God damn it! Where's the printer friendly button on this thing?

Jane! Stop this crazy thing! Get me off this infinite scroll page!

------
Arnor
> ... playing host to a herd of feral cats.

A group of cats is called a clowder... or a glaring :)

~~~
Symbiote
Or a herd. English is flexible.

Most of the collective nouns were made up in the 15th century anyway, and very
few have caught on. (Evidence: the article.)

~~~
Arnor
There's been a lot of up/down vote action on this Big Bang theory reference.
I've found it quite entertaining. Thanks HN. :)

------
cubano
It was awesome he was eventually paid for it on the blockchain.

Interesting that traders are using it for personal transactions these days.

~~~
sheraz
Doubtful. More likely just part of the running joke the oil's source could not
be verified -- they did not want to be tied a potential purchase of ISIS-
controlled oil.

~~~
leoc
Kaminska's splenetically anti-Bitcoin
[http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoinmania/](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoinmania/)
[http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoin/](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/tag/bitcoin/)
, so probably yes.

