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POPSOil & Gas Prices Plunge; Supply Unchanged High gas prices were driven by speculators in oil futures, low valuation of dollar, and war fears--NOT BECAUSE OF LIMITED SUPPLY. Making this point again since GOP propagandists were blaming high gas prices on lack of drilling and our "enemies at OPEC". Baloney! This should bring an end to that pack of lies. 1. This is investor driven, (read the analyst in the clip above). 2. The dollar is now regaining strength , which is used in international oil trade. (But the record $10.2 trillion national debt is made of fake printed money, which is inflationary, and still a huge problem). 3. War fears, which drive speculation also, have subsided as the prospect and drumbeat of war with Iran has diminished (for now). Until Israel foments war again. These are the three principle causes of high gas prices, now being reversed. Let the "drill" propagandists for supply as the cause now shut their mouths.
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POPSOil Spills Result of Hurrican Ike "We are dealing with a multitude of different types of pollution here ... everything from diesel in the water to gasoline to things like household chemicals," said Larry Chambers, a petty officer with the U.S. Coast Guard Command Center in Pasadena, Texas. Still, this can't possibly be happening, since John McCain says , "As for offshore drilling, it's safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston. Yet for reasons that become less convincing with every rise in the price of foreign oil, the federal government discourages offshore production." Seems like a half million gallons of crude qualifies as "significant spillage," John.
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POPSVenezuela signs oil deal with China The US government says it is not concerned by the developments, but equally it cannot be happy about the encroachment by Russia, or China, into a region Washington has long considered its backyard.
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POPSGot Gas? continued......What's the problem then? Why aren't oil companies jumping to pump the black gold? Contrary to what some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, there is no cabal of oil companies and foreign governments blocking the way, bottling up U.S. oil production. The reality is much more mundane. Those untapped reserves are located in places that either Uncle Sam has put off-limits for environmental reasons or are too costly to get -- or a combination of both. Given current sky-high prices for crude oil and the likelihood that oil prices will remain high -- at or above $100 a barrel -- for the foreseeable future, it is now economically viable to tap some of those reserves. But environmental concerns -- ranging from preservation of pristine lands to worries about increasing the use of fossil fuels and accelerating global climate change -- remain a hurdle. http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/The_U.S._s_Untapped_Bounty_080630.html
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POPSOil Posts Biggest Gain as Traders Caught in End-Month Squeeze
Oil has risen 33 percent since Sept. 16 as lawmakers pledged fast consideration of the Treasury's plan to buy devalued mortgage-related securities. We are back to the cycle that pushed prices to records earlier this year.'' Gasoline for October delivery increased 10.41 cents, or 4 percent, to settle at $2.7038 a gallon in New York. Heating oil rose 14.52 cents, or 5 percent, to settle at $3.043, the biggest single-session gain since June 6. Regular gasoline, averaged nationwide, declined 1.8 cents to $3.739 a gallon, AAA, the nation's largest motorist organization, said today on its Web site. Pump prices reached a record $4.114 a gallon on July 17. Crude oil prices are ``too high'' because the global economic slowdown may spread and cut consumption, the International Energy Agency's deputy executive director said. ``Gold, silver, oil, copper, just about any hard asset, is looking good at this point,'' said Michael Fitzpatrick, VP at MF Global Ltd. in New York.
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POPSOil jumps $25! I don't think this has hit the market yet, some of my tickers are still reporting the old price. Once today's market gets wind of a major jump in oil on worries about the dollar because of this bailout, we're in for some trouble. How can we bail out banks to the tune of $700b+ from federal money without devaluing the dollar?
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POPSNigerian militants halt oil war after one week A spokesman for the joint military taskforce, which polices the Niger Delta, cautiously welcomed Mend's move. "We are hoping it will not be another tactical deception which we have already prepared to contend," Lt Col Sagir Musa told Reuters news agency. The attacks forced oil giant Shell to declare a force majeure on Saturday - which frees it from contractual obligations - on crude oil shipments from its Niger Delta facilities. Nigeria's oil production has been cut by 20% because of unrest in the region over the past few years.
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POPSSham Drilling Bill Sends Crude Oil Up $12 A Barrel The ruse began late Monday night, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a 290-page bill and then waved it through less than 24 hours later, 236-189. "Closed" rules prohibited the GOP from offering alternatives. The real game was to give vulnerable Democrats political cover by letting them vote for more offshore drilling -- while also making more drilling all but impossible, thus appeasing the party's green wing. ... The bill would allow exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf, but only in waters 100 or more miles out in the Atlantic and Pacific. The farthest reaches of the OCS contain resources, but undersea geography and deep water make development very -- if not prohibitively -- expensive. Areas closer to land are far richer and easier to access. Conveniently, Mrs. Pelosi's bill imposes a 50-mile "buffer zone" around the country.
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POPSTurkey torn between NATO and Russia Ian Lesser, an expert on Turkey at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, wrote in a recent policy paper. "In theory, Turkey’s proximity to the crisis and desire to play a larger diplomatic role in the Black Sea could make Turkey a lynchpin of NATO strategy in Georgia, especially if rapprochement with Armenia is part of the equation. But Turkish willingness to place its territory at the service of Western policy in Georgia is highly uncertain."
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POPSRussia Halts Trading After 17% Share Price Fall The liquidity crisis is being caused by a crisis of confidence in which people are frightened to borrow and frightened to lend.” Shares in Russia’s biggest state-controlled banks led the slide with Sberbank, the state-controlled savings bank, closing 21.72 per cent down and VTB losing 29.26 per cent. The bank was suffered on investor fears about its securities portfolio, which makes up about 10 per cent of its assets. Crude sinks as traders await Opec decision September 10 2008 Ahead of yesterday's meeting in Vienna, Opec members remained divided over whether to reduce production, with Iran supporting a cut while Kuwait expressed opposition to any move. Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, said the oil market was "fairly well balanced", which some traders interpreted as a signal that a formal production cut was unlikely. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/12983a2e-7ed0-11dd-b1af-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
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POPSHeh!!! IT’S TIME TO DRILL By TWENTY POUND SLEDGE Music lyrics and performed by Alfonzo Rachel We can fix it if we drill here right now. They say it’s going to take 10 years well, They said that 10 years ago so, Had we done it then we’d have the oil now, litigation is the time they’ll drag out. Everyday I here this was a war for oil, though we have our own underneath American soil. If that were really true, then why didn’t you prevent the war by stepping aside so we could get our own crude? The only bloody hands would belong to the left. Aptly named sinister, and taxin’ us to death, The ministers of victimization, who keep us in a state of a dependency nation. REPEAT CHORUS A MACHO SAUCE PRODUCTION
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POPSThe Death Of OPEC September 11, 2008 “We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil." “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,” a senior OPEC delegate said. OPEC will still have lavish meetings and a nifty headquarters in Vienna, Austria, but the Saudis have made certain the the organization has lost its teeth. Even though the cartel argued that the sudden drop in crude as due to "over-supply", OPEC's most powerful member knows that the drop may only be temporary. The downward pressure on oil got a second hand. Brazil has confirmed another huge oil deposit to add to one it discovered off-shore earlier this year. The first field uncovered by Petrobras has the promise of being one of the largest in the world. That breadth of that deposit has now expanded.
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POPSGlobal Economic Downturn Sinks Crude Futures To Below $l00 The futures market briefly sank below the psychologically important $100-a-barrel mark for the first time since April 2. Wholesale gasoline prices on the Gulf Coast moved further into uncharted territory today, as refineries anticipated that Ike would lead to at least a significant pause in their operations, and at worst damage to their facilities. On Thursday, the Gulf Coast wholesale price of gasoline last traded at around $4.75 a gallon, according to OPIS, up substantially from about $3.25 Wednesday and less than $3 Tuesday. Wholesale prices are determined by major players in the supply chain including refining and trading companies, which constantly buy and sell barrels. These prices end up deciding what refineries charge distributors, before they get marked up further at the retail level for the consumer. The average U.S. retail price for gasoline edged up less than a penny to $3.675 today from Thursday
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POPSWhere's Our Energy Policy??? It blows my mind that we still allow OPEC to dictate so much of our economy because our leaders are so short-sighted and "in the box" thinkers that they can't develop an energy policy that removes OPEC from the picture. We have so many sources of domestic, renewable energy, there's no reason we need to continue relying on oil. If our politicians didn't have their heads up their a$*es the last 20 years we wouldn't be in this position now.
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POPSA satellite eye on the Earth last 2 pictures: a) Kasatochi volcano, Aleutian Islands, August 8: Dormant for 200 years this small volcano in the Pacific erupted without warning on August 7. The volcano’s plume is seen here as a brown streak in the cloud b) Phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea, Norway, August 12 2008. Phytoplankton are tiny plant-like organisms that are the foundation of the ocean food web. Like plants, they contain chlorophyll that they use to harvest sunlight for photosynthesis. In northern waters, these organisms are starved for sunlight much of the year, but during the summer months, they explode in colourful blooms such as this one
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POPS Iran Says Oil Price Is Right At $100 A Barrel Pressure for a cut in oil output at next week's Opec meeting in Vienna stepped up today when Iran’s Opec governor said an oil price of $100 per barrel was “appropriate” Robert Laughlin, analyst at MF Global, said today that Opec had played a good hand in its actions — or lack of them — this year, when prices rose aggressively. "But will be alarmed at the downturn in demand and the deteriorating economic backdrop of the global economy." "Western leaders will be urging the cartel to remain unchanged in production strategy but I fear there is growing feeling in the ranks of price hawks that a cut in production is required and now," Mr Laughlin said Even the most moderate Opec member, Saudi Arabia, which has indicated that it would prefer output to be left unchanged, has been cutting the discount at which it sells Arab heavy, a poor-quality crude that it uses to calm the oil price, offering large quantities at big discounts.
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POPSCaution likely at EU summit on Russia BRUSSELS, Belgium: When it comes to action over Georgia, Russia has the European Union over a barrel. In fact, 1.2 million barrels. That's the how much Russian crude is pumped westward everyday down the Druzhba pipeline to fuel Europe's economies. This hard economic reality explains why Monday's emergency EU summit will struggle to produce much more than a slap on the wrist for Russia, despite Europe's exasperation over Moscow's invasion of Georgia and backing for its two separatist regions to break away. The EU gets roughly a third of its oil and about 40 percent of its natural gas imports from Russia.
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POPSCrude Oil Prices The green shows crude oil prices. The blue shows US gas prices. The red is Canadian gas prices. We could not show congressional comments about speculation or Oil company profits, because they are off the chart.
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POPSAmerica: Don't Wait For Pelosi, Seize Our Energy Future Now! Only today, they have energy as a weapon. One premise of the new Putin Doctrine is that oil prices will stay high and that Russia, with its plentiful reserves, can use oil profits to fund its global ambitions. This is where Congress comes in. Since President Clinton refused to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1995, Democrats have stood in the way of any rational energy plan. Today, we pump just 25% of our oil; 40 years ago, it was 60%. We send about $900 billion a year overseas to buy oil, money that helps fund Russian and radical Islamic mischief. This is a problem. Now for the good news: The U.S. is the world's largest potential oil supplier — with as much oil, the Institute for Energy Research says, as has been used by the entire world over the last 150 years. Just offshore, we have 86 billion barrels of crude. The U.S. Arctic region, including Alaska, holds 30 billion barrels. In the Far West, we have more than 800 billion barrels of shale oil.
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POPSOil Supply Increases, Oil Price Increases Proof again supply is not the problem driving prices on oil and gas. Note this happens as the oil laden Caspian region (Russia, Georgia, etc.) comes into play with war and rumors of war--and particularly as Condi Rice (former exec at Chevron) goes around heightening US rhetoric against Russia and signing provocatory missile agreements with its satellite states. It is not actual supply so much as perceived supply which is effected by wars and "geopolitical" tensions and factors . Change the (neoconservative) war policy, prices will drop.
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