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Get ready for a price jump in gas this weekend. Things could get a lot worse in a hurry if the canal gets blocked. Oil at $90 a barrel is not helping the economy any and we may get to that $4 a gallon before we expected too if the whole middle east blows up.
I pay 3.48. Two cents behind the highest!American crude jumped 4 bucks today.
I already pay the highest in the country anyway, $3.50 a gal. for regular so what the hell...
Once it hits four bucks a gallon, expect food and other various commodities to skyrocket in cost. Don't expect your boss to give you a raise to compensate the inflation either...
Oil jumps $3.70 a barrel due to unrest in Egypt.
Isn't it grand? We have a president trying to end our only bulwark against foreign unrest increasing oil prices by shutting down domestic energy production, and then people have the gall to be surprised when unrest in some backwater nation hurts the world energy markets. Way to go P-BO!Get ready for a price jump in gas this weekend. Things could get a lot worse in a hurry if the canal gets blocked. Oil at $90 a barrel is not helping the economy any and we may get to that $4 a gallon before we expected too if the whole middle east blows up.
Isn't it grand? We have a president trying to end our only bulwark against foreign unrest increasing oil prices by shutting down domestic energy production, and then people have the gall to be surprised when unrest in some backwater nation hurts the world energy markets. Way to go P-BO!Get ready for a price jump in gas this weekend. Things could get a lot worse in a hurry if the canal gets blocked. Oil at $90 a barrel is not helping the economy any and we may get to that $4 a gallon before we expected too if the whole middle east blows up.
Morons.
Yet despite all the reasons to be suspicious of any forecasts, all it took was for prices to spike in response to the turmoil in Libya -- with the benchmark Brent crude going to nearly $120 a barrel -- for the usual predictions of doom, gloom, and lines at gas stations to be trotted out.
Time for a reality check. Nobody loves short-term volatility in the markets. (Except traders, of course; they love it.) But the idea that revolution in the Middle East is going to translate, through expensive oil, into a sustained global downturn seems way off. First, Libya accounts for less than 2% of global oil production; second, whoever runs that country will quickly figure out that oil is of no value if it's left in the ground; third, Saudi Arabia can always increase supply, and once prices spiked, started talking about how it might do so; fourth, the old assumptions about a rise in the cost of oil leading to a concomitant reduction in output don't hold as they once did -- the run-up in prices to 2008 coincided with a sustained period of global growth.
The Middle East, truth to tell, is not the place to look for the oil story. Prices, having crashed in 2008-09, have been rising for the past two years. Before the first demonstrations in Tunisia ever took place, prices were already up more than 30% from last summer. The global recovery is being led by emerging markets that are less energy-efficient than developed countries, and those markets will remain that way for decades, as millions of Indians, Chinese, and Africans move from villages to cities and as their nations shift from agriculture to energy-intensive manufacturing.
On the demand side, then, you would expect that in the long term -- say, over 20 years -- the price of oil is indeed going to go up. What about supply? Markets being wonderful things, high prices for any commodity stimulate investment in producing it, but at some level -- whether you believe oil production has "peaked" or not -- the global supply of oil is finite. A lot of new oil discoveries are either in places that are technologically challenging and expensive to exploit -- like Brazil's continental shelf -- or where environmental concerns add to the time and cost of bringing a project onstream (such as the Arctic). So oil is indeed going to be more expensive, and one day that will make renewable-energy options like wind and solar truly cost-effective.
MORE
White House Chief of Staff William Daley hinted on Sunday's "Meet The Press" show on NBC that the administration was looking at all options to deal with the recent energy price spike, including a limited drawing down of some of the oil in reserve. That comes after several Democratic Senators, including Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, called for President Obama to consider releasing oil from the reserve. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also said last week that the U.S. was prepared to act and tap the SPR if necessary.
But that could be a big mistake for one significant reason. This isn't really a crisis yet. Yes, oil and gas prices have surged due to unrest in Libya but there hasn't been much impact on global supply as of yet. Instead, what's going on reeks of speculation. This isn't like the last time the U.S. tapped the SPR back in 2005. That followed a huge surge in oil and gas prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which did actually wreak havoc on production in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite all the worries about supply disruption, the U.S. still is not facing any shortage. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
"If you really look at the inventories in the U.S., frankly we're oversupplied," said Blake Fernandez, an analyst who covers shares of integrated oil companies and independent refiners for energy research firm Howard Weil in New Orleans. According to the most recent figures from the Department of Energy, the stockpile of oil is 1.4% above levels from last year. Fernandez added that according to his firm's estimates, inventories are 4% above their 5-year average. Tapping the SPR is short-sighted, said David Pursell, managing director with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., a Houston-based investment bank focusing on the energy industry.
More http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/07/news/economy/thebuzz/index.htm
Speculators an' greedy oil companies pushin' oil prices up again...
Don't blame Mideast turmoil for oil woes
March 7, 2011: When you think of life's more pointless exercises -- guessing what Lady Gaga will wear next, trying to read Finnegans Wake -- predicting the price of oil is right up there. I remember oil executives telling me in 2002, when the price was a bit more than $20 a barrel, that it was heading for $16. It peaked at more than $140 in 2008.
Yet despite all the reasons to be suspicious of any forecasts, all it took was for prices to spike in response to the turmoil in Libya -- with the benchmark Brent crude going to nearly $120 a barrel -- for the usual predictions of doom, gloom, and lines at gas stations to be trotted out.
Time for a reality check. Nobody loves short-term volatility in the markets. (Except traders, of course; they love it.) But the idea that revolution in the Middle East is going to translate, through expensive oil, into a sustained global downturn seems way off. First, Libya accounts for less than 2% of global oil production; second, whoever runs that country will quickly figure out that oil is of no value if it's left in the ground; third, Saudi Arabia can always increase supply, and once prices spiked, started talking about how it might do so; fourth, the old assumptions about a rise in the cost of oil leading to a concomitant reduction in output don't hold as they once did -- the run-up in prices to 2008 coincided with a sustained period of global growth.
The Middle East, truth to tell, is not the place to look for the oil story. Prices, having crashed in 2008-09, have been rising for the past two years. Before the first demonstrations in Tunisia ever took place, prices were already up more than 30% from last summer. The global recovery is being led by emerging markets that are less energy-efficient than developed countries, and those markets will remain that way for decades, as millions of Indians, Chinese, and Africans move from villages to cities and as their nations shift from agriculture to energy-intensive manufacturing.
On the demand side, then, you would expect that in the long term -- say, over 20 years -- the price of oil is indeed going to go up. What about supply? Markets being wonderful things, high prices for any commodity stimulate investment in producing it, but at some level -- whether you believe oil production has "peaked" or not -- the global supply of oil is finite. A lot of new oil discoveries are either in places that are technologically challenging and expensive to exploit -- like Brazil's continental shelf -- or where environmental concerns add to the time and cost of bringing a project onstream (such as the Arctic). So oil is indeed going to be more expensive, and one day that will make renewable-energy options like wind and solar truly cost-effective.
MORE
See also:
Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Why?
March 7, 2011 -- Gas prices are alarmingly high. But perhaps the only thing more troubling than their rapid rise is that politicians are now wondering if the United States should tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try and force prices lower.
White House Chief of Staff William Daley hinted on Sunday's "Meet The Press" show on NBC that the administration was looking at all options to deal with the recent energy price spike, including a limited drawing down of some of the oil in reserve. That comes after several Democratic Senators, including Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, called for President Obama to consider releasing oil from the reserve. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also said last week that the U.S. was prepared to act and tap the SPR if necessary.
But that could be a big mistake for one significant reason. This isn't really a crisis yet. Yes, oil and gas prices have surged due to unrest in Libya but there hasn't been much impact on global supply as of yet. Instead, what's going on reeks of speculation. This isn't like the last time the U.S. tapped the SPR back in 2005. That followed a huge surge in oil and gas prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which did actually wreak havoc on production in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite all the worries about supply disruption, the U.S. still is not facing any shortage. In fact, it's the exact opposite.
"If you really look at the inventories in the U.S., frankly we're oversupplied," said Blake Fernandez, an analyst who covers shares of integrated oil companies and independent refiners for energy research firm Howard Weil in New Orleans. According to the most recent figures from the Department of Energy, the stockpile of oil is 1.4% above levels from last year. Fernandez added that according to his firm's estimates, inventories are 4% above their 5-year average. Tapping the SPR is short-sighted, said David Pursell, managing director with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., a Houston-based investment bank focusing on the energy industry.
More Tapping Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a bad idea - The Buzz - Mar. 7, 2011
Cool story. Now tell the forum how much oil we actually store in our SPRO.
JiggsCasey said:Here's a hint: It's a drop in the bucket, ... and only exists for short-term government function in the event of a major disruption in supply. It's not even refined product.
