Why is oil below $50 right now?

[Wild Cobra]

Ok, you just lost any respect I had for you right there.

Results 11 - 20 of about 1,600,000 for ann coulter lies. (0.04 seconds)

http://www.google.com/search?q=ann+coulter+lies&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
I've seen things like that before. Thing is, most of the people claiming she lies, are the liars.

Pick some out, and verify!

The left gets so pissed at her and they cannot dispute the facts in her books, so they have to make a big deal out of the difference between end notes and foot notes.

As many things as she has said, I'm sure you can find some things at fault. Web links don't count. It just shows the level of hatred she has acquired by the left. When you consider how many things she says are true compared to untrue, she has a pretty good record.

[RandomGuy]

Oh yeah, one final bit before I have to get to work...

The speculators who have been jumping into commodities for the last few months and driving the price of oil have started dumping their futures positions and buying bonds.

The prices of US treasuries are coming off 50 year lows (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601009&sid=aa_pN96kfSOk&refer=bond) on the bond market from what I heard on NPR on the way to work this morning. (click link to go to Bloomberg.com news article on bond market)

Look for oil to plummet, and inflation fears to subside.

All the money that used to be in stocks looking for returns went to commodities, and now is chasing bonds.

Look for stocks to be bearish for some time, I would guess, and a few rather nasty days to come in the next few months.

Yikes.

Man was that "oil to plummet" wrong. It was only a month, and could still happen, but I give the chances as being a bit less.

[RandomGuy]

I've seen things like that before. Thing is, most of the people claiming she lies, are the liars.

Pick some out, and verify!

The left gets so pissed at her and they cannot dispute the facts in her books, so they have to make a big deal out of the difference between end notes and foot notes.

As many things as she has said, I'm sure you can find some things at fault. Web links don't count. It just shows the level of hatred she has acquired by the left. When you consider how many things she says are true compared to untrue, she has a pretty good record.

(sighs)

Fine.

Columbia Journalism Review:

MAGAZINE WRITING
Books: How Slippery Is Slander?


Are footnotes a foolproof defense of accuracy? The conservative pundit Ann Coulter seems to think so. When liberal columnists and bloggers alleged that her new book, Slander, misreads history, selectively (and deceptively) presents facts, and misquotes the media, Coulter pointed to the 780 footnotes that pepper her pages.

Her publisher, Crown, has corrected five errors for the book's second printing: three minor misidentifications of public figures, an incorrect citation of The New York Times's coverage of the race car driver Dale Earnhardt's death, and an erroneous claim about press coverage of an Al Gore gaffe.

But what about the dozens of other allegations by Coulter's ideological foes? CJR checked out a sample of forty alleged errors — some backed by footnotes and others not — and found that nineteen were either accurate or could generously be considered fair comment and criticism. (Though some of the latter were hyperbolic or oversimplified to the point of absurdity — "Liberals have been wrong about everything in the last half-century," for example.) If a number of those nineteen would have raised the eyebrows of any good fact-checker, the remaining twenty-one would not pass without major debate. Here are three examples — all involving The New York Times, which consumes a major chunk of her index — of the kind of misstatements that we think Crown should consider correcting:

Coulter Claim: The New York Times columnist Frank Rich "demanded that Ashcroft stop monkeying around with Muslim terrorists and concentrate on anti-abortion extremists." (p. 5)

Footnote: She cites an October 27, 2001 column in which Rich makes no such demands. He does chastise Ashcroft for not meeting with Planned Parenthood, which sought to offer tips on combating anthrax scares, based on its own experience with them.

Coulter Claim: Liberals called the American flag "very, very dumb." (p. 4)

Footnote: She cites a New York Times story in which a liberal history professor, Daniel Boylan, makes no claim about the intelligence of the flag. He does criticize — as "acting very, very dumb in their patriotism" — those who have criticized Hawaii for not flying an American flag over Iolani Palace, the nineteenth century seat of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Coulter Claim: She introduces a New York Times editorial on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas headlined the youngest, cruelest justice, then writes: "Thomas is not engaged on the substance of his judicial philosophy. He is called 'a colored lawn jockey for conservative white interests,' 'race traitor,' 'black snake,' 'chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom' . . . ." (p. 12)

Footnote: The passage is constructed to suggest that the Times authored these epithets, but the footnote refers readers to comments made in a Playboy article, which goes unmentioned in the book's text.

... a trial subscription is required for more.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-21.html


She lies brazenly in the book about the Dover trial, which ruled the teaching of ID in science classrooms unconstitutional. According to Coulter: “They won the way liberals always win: by finding a court to hand them everything they want on a silver platter.” Here Ann Coulter shows herself to be either completely incompetent or deliberately deceptive. The judge that presided over Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is a life-long Republican and a church-goer, appointed to the federal bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush. Clifford A. Rieders, the former president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and a Democrat, said Judge Jones is “universally well regarded.” Coulter’s attempt to smear him is transparently motivated by her ideological concerns, not the facts.

[RandomGuy]

“Environmentalists’ energy plan is the repudiation of America and Christian destiny, which is Jet Skis, steak on the electric grill, hot showers, and night skiing.”

This consumerist position is untenable in light of much of Christian and American intellectual history. Coulter can’t point to a verse in the New Testament promoting self-indulgence that could justify the conspicuous consumption of the rich while tens of thousands die every day due to malnutrition and easily treatable diseases. Jesus exhorts his followers, “Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy,” and seek treasures in heaven instead of on earth. Nowhere in Coulter’s book does she express concern for the troubled people of the third world where there are food and drug shortages, or for the poor in this country who can’t even afford healthcare, much less jet skis or night skiing.

[RandomGuy]

http://users.rcn.com/skutsch/anticoulter/
http://slannder.homestead.com/
http://www.anncoulter.blogspot.com/
http://mediamatters.org/items/200504180001
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030630.html
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608070002

[Nbadan]

Coulter's a Joke, meanwhile, think gas prices can't go higher?


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite daily headlines bemoaning record gas prices, the U.S. is actually one of the cheaper places to fill up in the world.

Out of 155 countries surveyed, U.S. gas prices were the 45th cheapest, according to a recent study from AIRINC, a research firm that tracks cost of living data.

The difference is staggering. As of late March, U.S. gas prices averaged $3.45 a gallon. That compares to over $8 a gallon across much of Europe, $12.03 in Aruba and $18.42 in Sierra Leone.

The U.S. has always fought to keep gas prices low, and the current debate among presidential candidates on how to keep them that way has been fierce. But those cheap gas prices - which Americans have gotten used to - mean they feel price spikes like the ones we're experiencing now more acutely than citizens from other nations which have had historically more expensive fuel.

CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/international/usgas_price/index.htm)

[Wild Cobra]

Random, I didn't say she doesn't make mistakes. Consider the one article cites 780 footnotes, and how few of claims they ever find errors on. Think about how many statements she is making that fall under scrutiny. 19 of 40 said errors were not. That leaves 21 errors out of how many thousands of painful statements she says in her book "Slander."

I just wish I was that accurate. Don't you?

[RandomGuy]

Random, I didn't say she doesn't make mistakes. Consider the one article cites 780 footnotes, and how few of claims they ever find errors on. Think about how many statements she is making that fall under scrutiny. 19 of 40 said errors were not. That leaves 21 errors out of how many thousands of painful statements she says in her book "Slander."

I just wish I was that accurate. Don't you?

:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin

(shrugs)

There are waaaay more than that, and if you weren't so lazy and/or dishonest, you might find them too. I gave but a few links, and they weren't all copy and paste jobs of each other's work.

As it is, I think it has been reasonably demonstrated that a large portion, if not a majority of what she says has little substantiated basis in reality.

I will not waste a lot of time here trying to prove how her rhetoric is little more than empty demogoguery.

If you want to ruin your credibility by saying she is a great source of wisdom, go ahead. :lmao

[Wild Cobra]

:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin:spin

(shrugs)

There are waaaay more than that, and if you weren't so lazy and/or dishonest, you might find them too. I gave but a few links, and they weren't all copy and paste jobs of each other's work.

I have three of her books. The material is verifiable. Several sites that claim she is lying are in fact using errosious data themselve.

The thing with Ann Coulter is knowing her style enough to distinguish what her intent is. She often exagerrates with words, calling someone for example a traitor when they are simply not patriotic, and are what I call "lawful evil." or even any other 'evil' personality as defined by the 2nd edition AD&D.

You call me lazy? You didn't pick any specific example. You are the lazy one here. Isn't the burden of proof suppose to lie with the assusor? One reason why we fought for our independence from England was because of your tactics. "Let the assused provce their innocence!"

Shame on you.



As it is, I think it has been reasonably demonstrated that a large portion, if not a majority of what she says has little substantiated basis in reality.

You should pick up one her books sometime and read the reference material she cites, and go beyond that.



I will not waste a lot of time here trying to prove how her rhetoric is little more than empty demogoguery.

Then don't call me lazy. You are the accusor. Are you being slanderous, or can you produce your own evidence rather than someone elses propaganda and lies?



If you want to ruin your credibility by saying she is a great source of wisdom, go ahead. :lmao

Oh, I won't say that. She is a flamethrower and speaks what is almost always the truth, but she does it in very inflamatory ways. She does exagerate at times, but everything she says does have some good footing in the truth.

Take as many supposable errors you wish and compare them with the thousands of statements she makes. Do some serious work on what others say are errors, and chances are, you will find she is right. Not those who say she is lying.

Like any "Shock Jock," I can only listen to so much of her. The level of abuse she imposes on others is like Michael Savage. I have a hard time listening to such negativity for too long.

Still, she is rarely wrong in what she says.

[RandomGuy]

Still, she is rarely wrong in what she says.

I guess if one really boils down her material you can find that when she actually bothers with facts, they generally are correct.

What she does with those facts though is an entirely different thing. Her "claims" when it comes to drawing conclusions from those facts tend to have so little basis in reality as to be almost non sequiturs.

"Liberal Guy A was slightly critical of the president, [fact] so he must be having sex with his dog. [wtf?]

"Liberal Guy B said X, [slight misquote], so therefore all liberals deserve to be hanged or put in insane asylums. [wtf?]

She consistantly leaves out half the truth in some bizarre quest to villify people she doesn't agree with, and in that she falls into the worst category of liars, those that use *just* enough truth to not be outright lying, but couldn't really support what she says with any degree of reasonable fairness.

[RandomGuy]

can you produce your own evidence [about ann coulter] rather than someone elses propaganda and lies?

I would not waste my time on reading her material. I also think that the majority of that "propaganda" true.

You claim that the "propaganda" is lies, you provide the proof.

[Wild Cobra]

I guess if one really boils down her material you can find that when she actually bothers with facts, they generally are correct.

What she does with those facts though is an entirely different thing. Her "claims" when it comes to drawing conclusions from those facts tend to have so little basis in reality as to be almost non sequiturs.

"Liberal Guy A was slightly critical of the president, [fact] so he must be having sex with his dog. [wtf?]

"Liberal Guy B said X, [slight misquote], so therefore all liberals deserve to be hanged or put in insane asylums. [wtf?]

She consistently leaves out half the truth in some bizarre quest to vilify people she doesn't agree with, and in that she falls into the worst category of liars, those that use *just* enough truth to not be outright lying, but couldn't really support what she says with any degree of reasonable fairness.
Now that is one of the undesirable aspects of Ann Coulter. When she comes down on people, she makes fun of them like allot of people do. This isn't meant as fact, and anybody can see that. The things meant as fact are understood from anyone reading her work.

I never said she was fair. I was nice at calling her a flamethrower!

As for the examples you stated above, that is her part of her style when she chooses to demean someone. I cannot recall those specific examples to a situation, but she does get mean. I don't recall her saying such things for the minor exemplas you mention either, but she does get that way at times. She will take a factual situation, then give her opinion. We all know opinion is not fact. You understand that, right?

It would be like you are I saying "I saw the him run strait into oncoming traffic." .... "He's a real crack-head."

Don't you ever make such statements? Maybe with different language and words? Don't you ever take fact, then interject your opinion? She's just a flamethrower as she does it.

As for her lying when presenting facts. No. She doesn't need to. The people she vilifies are all she says. That's part of the reason she has no mercy.

Find me an actual error or lie, or drop this.

[Wild Cobra]

Here is the subject that turned my opinion of her. McCarthyism. We all learned in school what a vile man he was, destroying innocent lives. In her book Treason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason:_Liberal_Treachery_from_the_Cold_War_to_th e_War_on_Terrorism) she shows the truth behind the man and the subject, that can be verified. And I have done so after reading that book.

It was the democrat lead house investigations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HUAC) that were destructive. They attacked anyone thought of having communist teas during the red scare. The people McCarthy was referring to were in fact soviet agents, which were later verified with Project Venona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VENONA_project). Being the patriot McCarthy was, he couldn't reveal his information to clear his name.

I wonder if because McCarty was right about real communist infiltration in our government if others conducted ridiculous hearings to discredit the cause.

[boutons_]

Disruptions In Oil Supply May Extend Price Rise

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 6, 2008; D01



Here's how a small group of militants in West Africa can help keep an issue alive in presidential politics in Indiana and Washington.


On Sunday morning, an e-mail arrived from a representative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Movement+for+the+Emancipation+of+the+Niger+Delta?t id=informline) announcing that 36 hours earlier, the group had overrun a "heavily fortified" Royal Dutch Shell (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Royal+Dutch+Shell+plc?tid=informline) oil installation in Nigeria's Bayelsa state.

When commodity markets opened in New York yesterday, crude oil prices pierced the $120-a-barrel threshold for the first time before settling at $119.97, a record.


The $3.65 jump in crude oil prices helped sustain the intensity of political debates about gasoline prices, which yesterday stood at a national average of $3.61 a gallon -- a penny shy of a record and up about 55 cents this year. In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Good+Morning+America?tid=informline)" yesterday, President Bush (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=informline) said that the price of gasoline troubled him "a lot" and that rising gasoline prices were "like a tax on the working people." :lol :lol

( the cretin is fucking brilliant!! dubya always has exactly the right words at exactly the right time. :lol

"working people" as opposed to the non-working "Top 2%" with their $Ts in tax cuts?? :lol )

But however troubled Bush and other political leaders may be, oil experts said the small cushion of excess capacity around the world could mean a continuation of the recent volatility of oil prices at a high level. That could result in a long, hot summer for drivers, and it could leave the domestic U.S. politics of gasoline hostage to outside events.


"This continues to be a crisis-prone market, and that is reflected in the oil price," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "The fundamental fact is that it's a tight market."


Concern about Nigeria's output, which has been curtailed recently by labor disputes and militant attacks, raised new fears about the availability of world oil supplies. That concern fed into a rally in oil prices that started on Friday after federal jobs data raised expectations that the U.S. economy would be stronger than expected and that as a result, U.S. demand for oil would be more robust than expected.


"May is the lowest-demand month of the year, so it's really important that we see some buildup of stocks ahead of the summer," said Adam Robinson, an oil analyst at Lehman Brothers (http://financial.washingtonpost.com/custom/wpost/html-qcn.asp?dispnav=business&mwpage=qcn&symb=LEH&nav=el). "And here you have a couple of factors chipping away at that seasonal cushion."


Financial considerations continued to play a role in the high level of oil prices, oil experts said.

Robinson said that after 15 months of steady increases in oil prices, traders were reluctant to sell crude oil short, a financial method of betting on a price decline.

( meaning the traders don't expect price declines, duh )


"There's nobody waiting at retail stations to fill up cars, and there's no problem getting crude to refineries," said Rob J. Routs, executive director of oil products at Royal Dutch Shell. "The subprime crisis has redirected a lot of money into commodities." That, he added, was creating a "speculative premium."

( govt's should remove oil and food commodities from traders, so critical commodities are not subject to speculaton, causing financial disruption and millions of death as the traders profit. WTF has oil/food trader/speculator done for me lately, or ever? )

Oil prices "have changed dramatically" over the past year, Routs said, "certainly beyond our expectations."

( so does he get a dramatic change is expert's salary for predicting wrong? :lol Like CEOs, his compensation is totally detached from his performance. Why isn't Flordida tomato pickers compensation detached from their performance? :lol )


But supplies are still important, oil experts say. Adam Sieminski, chief oil economist at Deutsche Bank (http://financial.washingtonpost.com/custom/wpost/html-qcn.asp?dispnav=business&mwpage=qcn&symb=DB&nav=el), said declines in oil output in the United States and Europe and a slowdown in the growth of oil production in Russia were making it hard for world supplies to keep pace with rising consumption.


He said that even with the stagnant oil consumption in industrialized nations, world oil consumption would grow about 1.2 million barrels a day. And even with increased oil output in some nations, he predicted "rising dependence" on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/OPEC?tid=informline).


One of those OPEC countries is Nigeria, which produces a high-quality crude oil especially well-suited for U.S. refineries that produce large amounts of gasoline. Production in Nigeria has been growing from offshore oil fields, but militants continue to cripple much of the output that used to flow from wells in the sprawling Niger River delta.


Shell's share of the suspended production during the first quarter was 156,000 barrels a day, the company's chief financial officer, Peter Voser, said in a conference call last week. That rose to 164,000 barrels a day before the attacks over the weekend. Based on Shell's share of overall production, Voser's estimate suggests that Nigeria's exports are at least 550,000 barrels a day less than the country's capacity.


Attacks over the past couple of years had targeted operations in the western part of the delta, and Voser said Shell was restoring some of those facilities when MEND launched attacks in the eastern part of the delta early this year.

Although one of its fighters died, MEND, a loose umbrella of groups, dismissed the Nigerian military gunboats and soldiers guarding the installation as "mere ornaments." The group's e-mail said, however, that it was "seriously considering" a temporary ceasefire appeal by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Barack+Obama?tid=informline) (D-Ill.).

( HUSSEIN! displays his foreign policy mastery! :lol )

A senior foreign policy adviser to Obama said he had not commented recently on the situation in the Niger delta, though he had urged an end to the violence.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/05/AR2008050500307.html?hpid=moreheadlines

.

[JoeChalupa]

I heard on that some are even speculating Oil going upwards of $200 a barrel this year!!! What is up with that!!!???!!!???

[RandomGuy]

I heard on that some are even speculating Oil going upwards of $200 a barrel this year!!! What is up with that!!!???!!!???

I see that as very unlikely.

The recent run-ups seem to have had a LOT to do with the fed cutting interest rates, something they will be unlikely to continue, given the inflationary pressures from rising energy costs, as they have aleardy alluded to.

Supply worries will be leveling out, and overall consumption will be damped by a US economic slowdown. China WILL clamp down (and indeed is already doing so) on its overheating economy within a year, and that will also help mitigate demand somewhat.

Because of these two factors, both on the supply side and the demand side, at some point, returns from oil futures will flatten out, and when that happens, speculators will likely abandon oil futures to some degree, causing a pullback.

My best guess is that oil will end the year somewhere around where it is now, at about $120. The most likely range being about $95-145.

This is mostly my intuition, though. We'll see how good that intuition is in December.

[RandomGuy]

It's below $50 a barrel because speculators overestimated summer demand and refineries stocked up.

Gasoline inventory is really high right now.

Gas prices might go back up to $2.15/gal or so once summer vacation hits.

$80-$100 a barrel won't happen for a few more years.

Keep in mind that $45-$50 a barrel isn't exactly low anyway.


Ah, the good ol' days of 2005. (gas prices are hovering around $4.50 as of now)

[RandomGuy]

I thought it was supposed to hit 80-100 bucks and gas to $4 a gallon by now. According to nbadan that is!

Well, he was off, but not by much, wasn't he?

Less then two and half years later, the price of oil has more than doubled, representing price growth of about 40% per year. (1.4 to the 2.5 power):wow

I think that "peak oil" is pretty much certain, the only questions are when, and what we do about it.

Go drill in ANWAR, I don't really care. It won't make much difference in the end anyways.

We need a coherent strategy on developing conservation methods first, and solid R & D looking down the road on renewables.

[JoeChalupa]

I see that as very unlikely.

The recent run-ups seem to have had a LOT to do with the fed cutting interest rates, something they will be unlikely to continue, given the inflationary pressures from rising energy costs, as they have aleardy alluded to.

Supply worries will be leveling out, and overall consumption will be damped by a US economic slowdown. China WILL clamp down (and indeed is already doing so) on its overheating economy within a year, and that will also help mitigate demand somewhat.

Because of these two factors, both on the supply side and the demand side, at some point, returns from oil futures will flatten out, and when that happens, speculators will likely abandon oil futures to some degree, causing a pullback.

My best guess is that oil will end the year somewhere around where it is now, at about $120. The most likely range being about $95-145.

This is mostly my intuition, though. We'll see how good that intuition is in December.

i used to think $4 a gal for gas was unlikely.

[Nbadan]

I thought it was supposed to hit 80-100 bucks and gas to $4 a gallon by now. According to nbadan that is!

I was off a little, on the conservative side....now I'm saying gas could go to $8 a gallon in 2 more years....

[RandomGuy]

The other thing is that I saw a bit on Bloomberg that said that 10 year oil futures are $100 per barrel. This is an increase of 6.4% per year until then. That is waaay faster than the growth in demand, meaning that the market "thinks" that supply will not keep up. It won't. World-wide production will peak sometime in the next few years, best guesses that I have seen are in about 5-10 years, and OPEC production figures bear this out.

(begin edit--sorry, I hit the post button too quickly)
World-wide production of oil will be limited and declining while our energy needs increase dramatically.

TIME FOR THE BIG ECONOMICS 101 TEST:

If demand increases and at the same time supply decreases where does the price point go? (hint: not down)

We are nearing the end of oil's ability to meet our civilizations energy needs. It is sad that our short-sighted administration is doing nothing about it.

Dang, those ten year futures for $100/bbl would have been a GREAT investment. Sitting three years down the road and prices are at $110-$120 or so.

[RandomGuy]

Dan, I think $100 is well beyond a sort of glass ceiling on prices that cause global economic collapse and thus a collapse of global demand. I think $65 may be right around the upper bounds of a temporary spike. $55 is probably hovering around the point where it seriously endangers global economic health.

Zowie.

I guess we get to find out. I hope/think scott was wrong about this. No offense intended scott.

[RandomGuy]

Your calculator might also be out of batteries.

250 b / 11 mm / 365 = 62 years if you assume a constant 11 mmbpd. Even then, you are leaving out the other half of the equation. Global demand is already around 84 mmbpd. Assuming constant demand (unrealistic), that only leaves 8 years of supply in Saudi. End of Year 2003 Reserve Estimates range from 1,050 to 1,277 billion bbls (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html). At 84 mmbpd, that is only 40 years of supply. Of course, that is stretched out a little bit because we are discovering oil, just not as fast as we are depleting it.

Regardless, you can't assume a constant production either. Oil production curves have an inverted "U" shape with a definite peak. US production peaked in the late 70s. Once non-US production peaks, then you are looking at a real problem.

But obviously, the constraint is refining capacity. Myself and the other posters on this board have been discussing such for quite some time now, at least a year if not longer. Oil has an interesting dynamic because the number that the public watches (prompt WTI price) is for a good that the public has no immediate use for. A barrel of crude oil does Joe Blow absolutely no good, unless he wants to burn it for heat in his furnace (not a very efficient use). The demand for oil has an upper bound, and supply of product has a lower bound - which is refining capacity. To get a real understanding of the supply demand dynamic in the oil industry you have too look at product demand (end use demand, varying from product to product) and feedstock supply (crude oil coming out of the ground) and then be able to understand the transformation process and how the two play off each other. All this, of course, is easier said than done.

"the constraint is refining capacity"

No longer, it seems.

It is interesting to revisit the earlier part of the thread for stuff like this.

Scott is a smart guy, and I would bet money on what he says/predicts as the odds are good that he is usually right about this stuff.

I wonder what he would say now as an analysis of the situation?

[RandomGuy]

As for the gaurdian article, I think that is a bit much. Supplies are very tight, but there is still a little bit of "give" left. I believe oil will get to $100 per barrel within 10 years, tho', and this is a very steep climb percentage-wise per year.

I agree with many of the sentiments outlined by the article that nbadan posted though. Our materialism will be our downfall. We are in too much debt and that is unsustainable in the long run. The "wealthy" will not be forclosing on our houses for non-payment of mortgages, we will simply have lost our bet that many of us have made with our mortgages, i.e. that interest rates will always stay low, and our house values will keep going up as fast as they have been in recent years.

Zounds. RG may have been on to something.:p:

Ok, sorry that was too self-congratulatory.

[RandomGuy]

Even if supply and demand remains constant for oil on the world market, we can see $100 soon just because the way out dollar is dropping vs. other currencies!

I think $100 will happen realtively soon, and possibley stay there.

Correct on both counts.

[RandomGuy]

Too bad years ago some boneheads in SA voted down the lightrail system that would have been a blessing during these times.

Oh, here is a goodie. Time to rethink this?

[RandomGuy]

americans have to drive... gas prices aren't going to stop us...

Also correct.

This is absolutely fascinating reading.

[Nbadan]

Zounds. RG may have been on to something.:p:

Ok, sorry that was too self-congratulatory.

It's alright to revisit older threads and see how accurate predictions were, it lends credibility to predictions about today and helps weed out the hacks...

[RandomGuy]

Bump for the irony


ironic that the price of shit goes up??? not really.

up 100% in three years? Damn right ironic when you were trying to somehow claim the silly liberals wrong when oil was down below $50.



:loser

[Nbadan]

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil futures blasted to a new record over $122 a barrel Tuesday, gaining momentum as investors bought on a forecast of much higher prices and on any news hinting at supply shortages. Retail gas prices edged lower, but appear poised to rise to new records of their own in coming weeks.

A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of Tuesday's buying, although a falling dollar and increasing concerns about declining crude production in Mexico and Russia contributed, analysts say.

The Energy Department raised its oil and gasoline price forecasts, but also predicted that high prices will cut demand more than previously thought.

..............

Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a "super spike" in oil prices. Analyst Arjun Murti said in a research note released Monday that prices would ultimately force demand to fall sharply.

Link (http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d90g99no0&)

[Nbadan]

Don't feed the trolls, before the Bush Administration controlled Treasury Dept. started messing with the value of our currency the price of oil went up and down...

http://www.smartmining.com/oil-prices-2007.jpg

[Wild Cobra]

Don't feed the trolls, before the Bush Administration controlled Treasury Dept. started messing with the value of our currency the price of oil went up and down...

http://www.smartmining.com/oil-prices-2007.jpg

Dan, you need to compare that graph with other commodities like gold, and with the value of the dollar too. You will see some pretty good correlations. Then with all the other activities that influence money, please tell us how it is president Bush's policies rather than other factors like the trade agreements made before 2001.

Policies take time to show change. It is not clear that the change started say 2 years after president Bush took office. To blame it on president Bush is clear bias against the man.

When did we start draining our economy to China?

I didn't find what I was looking for but I did find we are about 21% of China's exports for 2007 numbers. China has a trade balance about $262.2 billion positive for them. Considering other nations protect their trade balance and we don't, I will assume we lose $150 billion to $250 billion annually to China. This is just one factor of many that you cannot simply blame president Bush for. I found the 2006 trade deficit for us to be $763.6 billion.

When did all this free trade start?

[boutons_]

Hit Americans with European prices, $8/gal, and see how below turns into a stampede.

Of course, Detroit has anticipated and has complete range of 40 mpg cars as well as Detroit has accepted global warming!! :lol

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/06/frustrated_owners_try_to_unload_their_guzzlers/

[RandomGuy]

Policies take time to show change.

Like the policy of "get bin Laden dead or alive"?

Still waiting on that policy to go through... :depressed

Seven years later and that f***er is still breathing. :makemyday

[Wild Cobra]

Hit Americans with European prices, $8/gal, and see how below turns into a stampede.

Well, I believe our currency has been artificially strong for some time in the world market. I believe it is possible that once it finally takes it's proper place in the world market. that our gas will be about 75% of what they pay in the Euro countries. It will be the same minus the differences in taxes in my opinion.

[Agloco]

I thought it was supposed to hit 80-100 bucks and gas to $4 a gallon by now. According to nbadan that is!

Better late than never........

Except in this case.

[JoeChalupa]

Damn, just when I saw gas actually go down a few cents the price of oil just hit a new high!!

[clambake]

139.01 a barrel.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

gee, i hope now the Lieberman-Warner bill will pass........and that Warner is a running mate Obamessiah is looking at. joy!

[boutons_]

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ssi/globalnav/wpdotcom_190x30.gif (http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf)

Investors' Growing Appetite for Oil Evades Market Limits

Trading Loophole for Wall Street Speculators Is Driving Up Prices, Critics Say

By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 6, 2008; A01



Hedge funds and big Wall Street (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Wall+Street?tid=informline) banks are taking advantage of loopholes in federal trading limits to buy massive amounts of oil contracts, according to a growing number of lawmakers and prominent investors, who blame the practice for helping to push oil prices to record highs.


The federal agency that oversees oil trading, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Commodity+Futures+Trading+Commission?tid=informlin e), has exempted these firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a prerogative traditionally reserved for airlines and trucking companies that need to lock in future fuel costs.


The CFTC has also waived regulations over the past decade on U.S. investors who trade commodities on some overseas markets, freeing those investors to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges.

Over the past five years, investors have become such a force on commodity markets that their appetite for oil contracts has been equal to China's increase in demand over the same period, said Michael Masters (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Michael+Masters?tid=informline), a hedge fund manager who testified before Congress on the subject last month. The commodity markets, he added, were never intended for such large financial players.

"I've never said that financial speculation is behind all of the recent price increase here, but even if it's some of the reason, it's something society needs to look very hard at," he said.

Commodities have become especially enticing to investors as the credit crisis has roiled other investment opportunities such as stocks and debt-related securities. The recent flood of investment money has transformed the markets for oil, as well as uranium, wheat, cotton and other goods, into a volatile realm that some insiders call the Wild West of Wall Street.

( a lot of the investment money $800B+ comes from the cut in estate taxes on the superwealthy )

Even as record oil prices translate into staggering increases at the pump, some regulators, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Henry+M.+Paulson?tid=informline) Jr., say investors are not to blame. These officials cite supply and demand as a far bigger factor.

( dubya's henchmen are always believable. This guy is a member of the Masters of the Universe Club, the Wall St/DC/plutocrat/kleptocrat club )

Since last year, this was also the position of the CFTC. But agency officials have recently signaled greater concern, saying they want to collect more data to determine whether speculation might be a significant factor. That information can be difficult to obtain because commodity trading often occurs through private, unregulated transactions and on overseas exchanges.

Walter Lukken (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Walter+J.+Lukken?tid=informline), the acting chairman of the CFTC, acknowledged in an interview that his agency has had a hard time keeping up with the sector it oversees. Commodity trading has exploded in complexity and popularity, he said, growing six-fold in trading volume since 2000.

That was the year a handful of giant energy companies, including Enron (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Enron+Corporation?tid=informline), successfully lobbied Congress to ease the regulation of energy markets.

( and the Repugs gave them exactly what they wanted, the Repug FERC looked the other way while the energy cos fucked over America )

Meanwhile, the CFTC's staffing has dropped to its lowest levels in the agency's 33-year history.

"We could hire an extra 100 people and put them to work tomorrow given the inflow of trading volume," Lukken said. "We are doing the best we can in difficult circumstances. . . . This is something that we are obviously concerned with -- the potential for manipulation."

( yeah, right! :lol :lol Manipulation is the fucking name of the game, and he knows it )

CFTC officials said in interviews that they planned to re-examine the exemptions granted by agency staff to Wall Street firms. These date to 1991, when complex derivatives used to bet on futures contracts emerged and their significance was little understood. These officials said they would also reconsider the waivers given to overseas trades.

On commodity markets, buyers largely purchase futures contracts, which determine the price goods will fetch on a particular date in the future. Unlike commercial businesses that are trying to lock in prices for coming orders, speculators have little interest in taking actual delivery of oil or other commodities. Instead, these investors trade the contracts like stocks. These investments can be very attractive because there are only light restrictions on whether they can be bought and sold using borrowed money. While risky, this can produce enormous returns.

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers allege that gaps in oversight are allowing deep-pocketed speculators to manipulate prices.

"Consumers no longer have the confidence that the prices they are paying at the pump are fair or even linked to underlying supply-and-demand forces," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/c000127/) (D-Wash.).

( "let them eat new refineries!" ... will always bring down their prices! )

The recent craze in commodity investing is partly due to the emergence of commodity index funds, which act like mutual funds except they hold futures contracts rather than stocks. Such funds have made commodity purchases far easier for a wide range of investors, including hedge funds, investment banks, pension funds and university endowments.

George Soros (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+Soros?tid=informline), one of the nation's leading investors, testified in a Senate hearing this week that index funds were contributing to the rapid rise in commodity prices and were possibly creating a bubble. If it were to burst, sending prices tumbling, the fallout could wreak havoc on banks, retiree funds and colleges across the nation.


"I find commodity index buying eerily reminiscent of a similar craze for portfolio insurance, which led to the stock market crash of 1987," Soros said.

Information on commodity trades can be hard to come by. Some contracts are exchanged privately between two parties who do not have to disclose the transaction. There are also two exchanges that trade oil and other goods in the United States. One, the New York Mercantile Exchange (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/New+York+Mercantile+Exchange+Inc.?tid=informline), or Nymex, is closely regulated. The other, Intercontinental Exchange, has set up a market in London, where trading can occur beyond the purview of U.S. regulators.

( as the the right-wingers say, "if you have nothing to hide, then why not let the govt know everything about you" So why are these traders hiding and working off-shore? )

Nymex is now setting up its own market in Dubai, which the CFTC has given permission to trade oil destined for delivery in the United States. The CFTC has stated that it would not place restrictions on U.S. investors who exchange oil contracts in Dubai but rely on foreign regulators.

Nymex chief executive Jim Newsome said he recognized that Congress's patience with the CFTC was wearing thin. But he warned lawmakers against acting too rashly.


"I think some members of Congress would prefer the CFTC to move more quickly than they have," he said. "But the CFTC are the experts on these markets. And there can be very dangerous unintended consequences when you are dealing with a huge marketplace."

Officials at the Intercontinental Exchange said they worried that some investors would stop doing business with the United States if an "onerous regulatory burden" were placed on domestic markets.

Last week, the CFTC announced a new information-sharing agreement with British regulators who oversee the trading of oil destined for the United States. The agency also took the highly unusual step of revealing an ongoing investigation into possible oil price manipulation.

"I want to make sure these markets are properly regulated and will do everything we can to do that," :lol :lol said Lukken, who faces confirmation hearings in the Senate this week. Several Democrats have warned that they may try to oust him.


Under pressure from voters, lawmakers are pressuring the CFTC to take even more forceful action to regulate the commodity markets.
CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bart+Chilton?tid=informline) acknowledged that the agency should have been quicker to adapt.


"The commission has realized that the ordinary regulatory environment that we've been operating in has transformed dramatically and we need to look at things in an entirely new way," Chilton said. "We haven't been doing all that we needed to do. We've been getting by, and I think it requires more than just getting by."


Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/University+of+Maryland?tid=informline) and former CFTC commissioner, said there were loopholes the agency could close without much effort.

( "much (regulatory) effort" from a Repug Exec? GMAFB )

"There's smoke here, and the CFTC hasn't wanted to look if there's a fire," he said. "Now they say they want to look, but they need the data. . . . But these are dark markets. They don't even know who's doing the trading."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/05/AR2008060504322_pf.html

==================

So as you drop $100 on the next tank, figure $30 is for the commodities sharks, and $30 is for dubya's bullshit war.


http://pix01.revsci.net/J05531/a3/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/noscript.gif

[E20]

Some good news:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080610/oil_prices.html

[MannyIsGod]

8EWwrK0VQkY

[xrayzebra]

What I love most is the dimms wanting to raise taxes on
oilco's to solve the spiral in oil prices. Wonder how they
come up with these plans. Also wonder if anyone up there
ever thinks about just letting them drill and produce more.
You know like supply and demand..........

[clambake]

What I love most is the dimms wanting to raise taxes on
oilco's to solve the spiral in oil prices. Wonder how they
come up with these plans. Also wonder if anyone up there
ever thinks about just letting them drill and produce more.
You know like supply and demand..........

it's too bad you'll never understand the oil business.

[xrayzebra]

it's too bad you'll never understand the oil business.

Yeah, but I am learning by listening to the dimms.
I know that more taxes solves all problems. Right?

[clambake]

Yeah, but I am learning by listening to the dimms.
I know that more taxes solves all problems. Right?

can you tell me why any company that makes billions in record profits deserves tax breaks?

later, we can talk about increased oil production and it's effect on gas prices and foreign dependency.

[xrayzebra]

You want to talk about ALL the companies or just OILCO's.
You know like bottle water companies or shampoo compaies
or any number of companies that you buy from on a regular
basis that make huge amounts of profits for their investment.

[clambake]

sure, i'll talk about it. is an answer forthcoming?

[xrayzebra]

sure, i'll talk about it. is an answer forthcoming?

I doubt it, at least one you would accept. How would
it be a day without you riding me.....:lol. You make
my day clam. I got to go do some things. And
Rush will be on in a little while. Got to get my fix
according to my adversaries on the forum. But
rest easy old friend. I shall return......

You keep my old mind a working.....:toast

[scott]

can you tell me why any company that makes billions in record profits deserves tax breaks?



I can, but I doubt you'd listen so I won't spend the 5 minutes required to type it up.

[RandomGuy]

I can, but I doubt you'd listen so I won't spend the 5 minutes required to type it up.


If you would do that, I would read it. I can't vouch for agreement, but I do respect your opinion on such things.

I would not think that oil companies need tax breaks, but do think the windfall tax is stupid idea.

[Purple & Gold]

I can, but I doubt you'd listen so I won't spend the 5 minutes required to type it up.

:rolleyes :rolleyes

[scott]

If you would do that, I would read it. I can't vouch for agreement, but I do respect your opinion on such things.

I would not think that oil companies need tax breaks, but do think the windfall tax is stupid idea.

In that case, look for a Super Scott Spectacular on Oil and Taxes. To be covered: tax "breaks", wildfall profit taxes, and gas tax holidays. Except where confronted with extreme stupidity of the idea, I'll try to provide the basis for why any of the above would be warranted.

As to avoid getting lost in the shuffle of Clandestino bashing, I'll start a new thread (also meets the requirments of my one new thread ever quarter quota).

[Clandestino]

the biggest crooks are the companies selling city water in a bottle!!! hahaha.. that shit cracks me up.

[RandomGuy]

the biggest crooks are the companies selling city water in a bottle!!! hahaha.. that shit cracks me up.

I agree.

What a freaking racket.

one 16 ounce plastic bottle: $0.005
16 ounces of tap water: $0.00005
Watching suckers pay $1.29 for bottled tap water: Priceless.

[Wild Cobra]

I agree.

What a freaking racket.

one 16 ounce plastic bottle: $0.005
16 ounces of tap water: $0.00005
Watching suckers pay $1.29 for bottled tap water: Priceless.

Especially here in Oregon, it doesn't make sense. We have some of the softest, cleanest tap water in the world. From Your Water Needs dot com (http://yourwaterneeds.com/AR_US_Hardness_Map.asp):

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/water-hardness-map-1.jpg http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/water-hardness-map-text.jpg

Not only is our ground water soft, the Portland metro area gets most of it's water directly from the mountain run-off.

On top of that, I don't see how many reports where tap water is said to be safer and cleaner than bottled water in most cases.

[Wild Cobra]

Here's another one:

http://water.usgs.gov/owq/map1.jpeg

I gave up on finding the world maps I located years ago when I brewed beer. I used to have data on the contents of various mineral concentrations as well.

With more detailed resolution in numbers, the Oregon area was the softed region in the USA and not many places compared in the world. Unless you specifically want mineral water, good 'ol Orogon Tap water is just fine. So clean the chlorine levels aren't even noticable due to the small abount needed.

[Clandestino]

were getting close to busting this thread out again!!!

[Bartleby]

were getting close to busting this thread out again!!!

Man, I sure hope so. I was scared shitless about the prospect of paying over $4/gallon for heating oil this winter.

[Wild Cobra]

were getting close to busting this thread out again!!!
I don't think it will drop that low again, ever.

[jochhejaam]

I don't think it will drop that low again, ever.

I didn't think we'd ever see it dip below $3.00 a gallon again.
Current prices in my town;
http://www.toledogasprices.com/Perrysburg/index.aspx

[RandomGuy]

It may very well drop to about $50, given a global recession.

Even so, I predict it going up massively over the next 20 years. Sustained prices in the $200/bbl range at the end of that time is my best guess

[RandomGuy]

It is creeping downwards...

I see it breaking the $50/bbl mark during the US recession.

[johnsmith]

It is creeping downwards...

I see it breaking the $50/bbl mark during the US recession.

:lol

I was waiting for this thread to be bumped.

[ClingingMars]

wow, this is an epic thread, well before my time.

-Mars

[LnGrrrR]

It's below $50 a barrel because speculators overestimated summer demand and refineries stocked up.

Gasoline inventory is really high right now.

Gas prices might go back up to $2.15/gal or so once summer vacation hits.

$80-$100 a barrel won't happen for a few more years.

Keep in mind that $45-$50 a barrel isn't exactly low anyway.

They screwed themselves anyways. People realize how quick those prices can jump... if they could've found a way to keep gas prices low artificially, then people wouldn't have freaked. As it is, now car companies prominently proclaim MPG on ads instead of Horsepower. They killed the golden goose, for want of a few more golden eggs.

[cool hand]

its $50 a barrell for one reason

NO SPECULATORS.

[RandomGuy]

its $50 a barrell for one reason

NO SPECULATORS.

That and a total drop in demand due to the global slowdown and US recession.

[RandomGuy]

It may very well drop to about $50, given a global recession.

Even so, I predict it going up massively over the next 20 years. Sustained prices in the $200/bbl range at the end of that time is my best guess

Re-read this, and a small correction is in order:

There will likely not be a global "recession", as the overall global economic growth, even with a US recession is forecast to be positive over the next couple of years.

Better term: global slowdown. Positive growth, just not as much as we have had in the last few years.

Remember that the US economy, although still large, represents an increasingly shrinking part of the overall global economy.

[BradLohaus]

I think the key is that what used to be basically the ceiling is now most likely the floor.

Note how everybody is happy about $2.00 per gallon gas when not that long ago everybody in Texas nearly had a stroke when they first saw it.

[Clandestino]

it was over 100 for a reason too.. opec fucking everyone... they are wanting to drop production now because the price is dropping so rapidly.

[boutons_]

"opec fucking everyone"

Saudis said they had more oil for delivery than they had buyers. It wasn't even majoritarily a supply/demand mismatch.

Speculation (Wall St, etc) added many 10s of $ to the price at its peak, as they did to agricultural commodities months ago.

Speculators, having taking their profits, have fled commodities, for now.

[cool hand]

it was over 100 for a reason too.. opec fucking everyone... they are wanting to drop production now because the price is dropping so rapidly.

OPEC is BIG OIL.......common sense is hard to come by these days.

[xeromass]

Note how everybody is happy about $2.00 per gallon gas when not that long ago everybody in Texas nearly had a stroke when they first saw it.

So fucking true.

Why $2 Gas Is Amazing: Three reasons it should be cheaper. (http://www.slate.com/id/2100772/)

dated May 19, 2004

[RandomGuy]

Oil drops 7 percent to 3-1/2-year low below $50 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081120/ts_nm/us_markets_oil)

Looks like it actually got back down to less than $50. The Russians and Iranians have to be s***ing bricks.

[ChumpDumper]

Why would they suck bricks?

[xrayzebra]

RG, it wont stay there. It will go back up. Demand is down, but it will increase with
the decrease in price.

[ChumpDumper]

It got so high because of speculation. Now the prediction is decreased demand because the economy is in the tank. I don't see what would get it much higher anytime soon.

[RandomGuy]

RG, it wont stay there. It will go back up. Demand is down, but it will increase with
the decrease in price.

mmm not quite.

It will go up if OPEC cuts supply, or if the economy suddenly picks up and starts demanding more oil.

If the economy continues to slide, expect prices to do the same.

Remember, the price is simply the intersection between the underlying supply and demand.

[xrayzebra]

It got so high because of speculation. Now the prediction is decreased demand because the economy is in the tank. I don't see what would get it much higher anytime soon.

Economy is in the tank. Okay. Have you been to the malls lately? Cant
move. Have you lost your job or are you in danger of losing you job?

Some of the big money people are in trouble. But there is still plenty
of liquidity from all I can see. Dealers keeping advertising they have plenty
of credit to come on down. My bank is in good shape and my accounts
are sound.

My financial situation hasn't changed. I still pay my bills on time.

I think sometimes people just loved to make themselves miserable.

[ChumpDumper]

Economy is in the tank. Okay. Have you been to the malls lately? Cant
move.I got around really easily yesterday. And being at the mall does not mean people are consuming in the same manner as a year ago.


Have you lost your job or are you in danger of losing you job?I have pretty good job security, but the people we do jobs for are feeling the downturn, definitely. That could affect our work load and my income.


Some of the big money people are in trouble.You think big money people have no effect on small money people? Ever?
But there is still plenty
of liquidity from all I can see. Dealers keeping advertising they have plenty
of credit to come on down.Are you coming on down?


My bank is in good shapeHow do you know?
and my accounts
are sound.If they aren't over the FDIC limits, that's true of every account in the US.


My financial situation hasn't changed. I still pay my bills on time.Congratulations.


I think sometimes people just loved to make themselves miserable.I think people who have lost a big chunk of the money they were counting on for retirement probably have a decent reason for concern -- but maybe they should just go to the mall.

[Nbadan]

I think people who have lost a big chunk of the money they were counting on for retirement probably have a decent reason for concern -- but maybe they should just go to the mall.

:lol it's so sad when free-marketers have to face their own demons....denial isn't just a river in the country of Africa after all....

[BradLohaus]

You know, I thought that Lindsey Williams guy was crazy when he said that oil would shoot down to $50 a barrel relatively soon about 4 months ago, but he was dead on.

[The Final Countdown]

Chump knows its...........................

[jochhejaam]

You know, I thought that Lindsey Williams guy was crazy when he said that oil would shoot down to $50 a barrel relatively soon about 4 months ago, but he was dead on.

When it went to $4.35 here, I didn't think it would ever go below $3 a gallon,
it's now as low as $1.56 and averaging less than $1.70.

http://www.toledogasprices.com/Perrysburg/index.aspx

[Extra Stout]

$50 oil is bringing the recession to Houston, which had been pretty buoyant. Lyondell is laying off about 3000 people. ExxonMobil and Shell are postponing or cancelling several projects.

The cumulative bubble created by easy credit and real estate speculation probably accounted for 5 to 7% of GDP, and that's going to disappear now. A 5 to 7% contraction would be easily the worst since the Great Depression. We're probably looking at 10-11% unemployment in a year.

[RandomGuy]

$50 oil is bringing the recession to Houston, which had been pretty buoyant. Lyondell is laying off about 3000 people. ExxonMobil and Shell are postponing or cancelling several projects.

The cumulative bubble created by easy credit and real estate speculation probably accounted for 5 to 7% of GDP, and that's going to disappear now. A 5 to 7% contraction would be easily the worst since the Great Depression. We're probably looking at 10-11% unemployment in a year.

I would agree. My gut said a recession was becoming more and more likely, and that it would be bad. It will be worse than a lot of analysts predict, and they are forecasting about 8-9% unemployment.

This doesn't look good for the ineptocracies running Libya, Iran, Russia, Venezuala that have based a lot of populist give-aways on oil revenue.

[boutons_]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v3/greeninc/greeninc_print.png (http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/)
http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_remote.html?type=noscript&page=blog.nytimes.com/greeninc&posall=TopAd,Position1,Position1B,Top5,SponLink,Sp onLink2,SFMiddle,Box1,Box3,Bottom3,Right5A,Right6A ,Right7A,Right8A,Middle1C,Bottom7,Bottom8,Bottom9, Inv1,Inv2,Inv3,tacoda,SOS,Middle4,ADX_CLIENTSIDE&pos=Position1B&query=qstring&keywords=? (http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=cookie&pos=Position1B)

November 24, 2008, 8:39 am

States Flirting With Higher Gas Taxes

By Kate Galbraith (http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/author/kate-galbraith/)

Cash-strapped states may be looking to increased gas taxes to make up for budget shortfalls. (Photo: Associated Press) For politicians, two of the most dreaded words in the English language are “gas tax,” and it was only a few months ago that a few politicians (including some presidential candidates (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/politics/02mccain.html)), were proposing gas-tax holidays for the summer driving season.

As it stands, the current federal gas tax is at 18.4 cents a gallon — and it has not budged for essentially 15 years.

Every state except Alaska slaps its own tax on gasoline, and these, too, rarely get raised. The average state tax is 30 cents and the high is California with 48.7 cents. (See the American Petroleum Institute’s state-by-state breakdown (http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/October_2008_gasoline_and_diesel_summary_pages.pdf ) for more.)

The idea of raising taxes on gas — substantially — has long found support among economists, including Greg Mankiw (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html), a professor of economics at Harvard University, and Steven Levitt (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/hurray-for-high-gas-prices/), co-author of the bestselling book “Freakonomics” and a Times blog by the same name.
Wrote Mr. Levitt last year (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html):

For a long time I have felt the price of gasoline in the United States was way too low. Pretty much all economists believe this. Greg Mankiw blogged back in October about the many reasons why we should raise gas taxes.

The reason we need high gas taxes is that there are all sorts of costs associated with my driving that I don’t pay — someone else pays them. This is what economists call a “negative externality.” Because I don’t pay the full costs of my driving, I drive too much. Ideally, the government could correct this problem through a gas tax that aligns my own private incentive to drive with the social costs of driving.

Hard times appear to be nudging at least some politicians in cash-strapped states to embrace the idea.

In Massachusetts (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/21/patrick_calls_for_timeout_on_gas_tax_rise/), the speaker of the house wants to raise the gas tax to help pay for the Big Dig; the governor, Deval Patrick, wants to raise tolls instead.

In Vermont (http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9388710&nav=menu183_15_19), where the gas tax has not risen since 1997, the state treasurer wants a 5-cent increase to pay for infrastructure repairs — though the state’s governor is opposed. Meanwhile, it is the governor of Oregon who is pushing for a 2 cent per gallon tax hike (http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20081111/NEWS/811110322&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL).

Flirting with innovation, Michigan (http://www.freep.com/article/20081120/NEWS05/811200375), a construction group has even called for a gas tax that fluctuates as gas prices go up and down.

For those readers in states considering similar proposals, the National Conference of State Legislatures also provides a useful breakdown (http://www.ncsl.org/print/energy/GasMarks08.pdf) of where our payments at the pump end up.

[boutons_]

There is a drop in demand, but not 2/3 drop, from $150 to $50.

This is obvious, irrefutable proof that commodity speculators, like US hedge/priviate equity funds, using probably $10s of Bs of dubya's estate/wealthy tax cuts were pushing up the oil price, chasing more returns, 25%?, than they could get investing in the boring old Real Economy where capital returns 7-8%.

Same story with commodity agricultural products.

As the Saudis said several months ago, they had oil they couldn't sell, even before they added 500K barrels/day, so supply was sufficient, even if just a couple % over demand.

[Wild Cobra]

There is a drop in demand, but not 2/3 drop, from $150 to $50.

This is obvious, irrefutable proof that commodity speculators, like US hedge/priviate equity funds, using probably $10s of Bs of dubya's estate/wealthy tax cuts were pushing up the oil price, chasing more returns, 25%?, than they could get investing in the boring old Real Economy where capital returns 7-8%.

Same story with commodity agricultural products.

As the Saudis said several months ago, they had oil they couldn't sell, even before they added 500K barrels/day, so supply was sufficient, even if just a couple % over demand.

No, Supply and Demand values do not follow in a linear fashion. That's why even if ANWR only increases or oil bvy 5%, it has a dramatic effect of price.

Speculators have very little effect on prices. They contract early for a price, but still have to sell at no more than what the market will bear.

You libtards just don't get it.

[ChumpDumper]

That's why even if ANWR only increases or oil bvy 5%, it has a dramatic effect of price.How dramatic?

[ChumpDumper]

Speculators have very little effect on prices.
:rollin:rollin:rollin:rollin

[RandomGuy]

No, Supply and Demand values do not follow in a linear fashion. That's why even if ANWR only increases [our oil by] 5%, it has a dramatic effect of price.

If you increase "our oil by 5%" that does next to NOTHING to the price we pay at the pump, nor does it do anything near substantial to the price that refiners in the US pay for oil.

Do I need to explain the global market for oil yet again?

[RandomGuy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

Oil just closed at $40 per barrel.

I would have thought this to be on the lower end of the scale if you had asked me a year ago, but I think it will head lower.

Hell, I am not even going to bother guessing about how low it will ultimately end up.

Of course, if hyperinflation sets in, then God knows where it will be in a year in the other extreme. Fuck. I do not say that lightly. Fuckity fuck fuck. :spless:

scott? Extra Stout?

[Nbadan]

Of course, if hyperinflation sets in, then God knows where it will be in a year in the other extreme. Fuck. I do not say that lightly. Fuckity fuck fuck.

Speculators got no cash in their pockets...the risky credit cash has dried up and now oil demand is taking a hit because of the global financial meltdown....double wammy...

[MannyIsGod]

No, Supply and Demand values do not follow in a linear fashion. That's why even if ANWR only increases or oil bvy 5%, it has a dramatic effect of price.

Speculators have very little effect on prices. They contract early for a price, but still have to sell at no more than what the market will bear.

You libtards just don't get it.

God damn this is why you're always wrong. ALWAYS.

[RandomGuy]

Still holding out hope that scott the oil economist will weigh in...

[Clandestino]

Damn, I remember all the times you bitches bumped this thread at 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, etc.

[Yonivore]

Still holding out hope that scott the oil economist will weigh in...

Hasn't the Pirate corollary changed?

[Wild Cobra]

If you increase "our oil by 5%" that does next to NOTHING to the price we pay at the pump, nor does it do anything near substantial to the price that refiners in the US pay for oil.

Do I need to explain the global market for oil yet again?
It would do no good. You are full of bullshit more than half the time.

[RandomGuy]

It would do no good. You are full of bullshit more than half the time.

The would mean that I am not full of bullshit at least some of the time.

Let me try once agian then:

If we increase our domestic supply by 5-10% that means that we have increased the GLOBAL supply by a very miniscule amount.

To wit:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo
US 2008 production: 8.5 million barrels per day.
total global prod: 85.52 million barrels per day.

These figures make it really easy to calculate the following:
Raising US production by 10% would add 1% to global supply.

Since the price of crude is a global market, as US production can be just as easily sold on the global market as consumed at home, and/or any US production simply lessens the amount of crude the US draws from the global market, this would have a negligible effect on the global supply/price.

I hope this helps. You seem to be under the impressiont that raising the US production figures by 10% would have some effect at the pump. It will, but on an order of magnatude smaller than you seem to think.

[RandomGuy]

Hasn't the Pirate corollary changed?

???

[Wild Cobra]

I hope this helps. You seem to be under the impressiont that raising the US production figures by 10% would have some effect at the pump. It will, but on an order of magnatude smaller than you seem to think.

At least you agree it will have some effect.

[RandomGuy]

At least you agree it will have some effect.

Some effect yes.

Just like pissing into Lake Michigan will have "some effect" in raising the water level.

Raising it by 10% will not change this curve, and would not be sustainable, in any case.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/blanchard/images/Image1.gif

This curve will be followed eventually by the global production figures, very likely soon.

If you want to reduce pump prices, buy smaller cars, and start investing in efficiency.

Long term that is where you get the best bang for the buck, anyways.

[Rogue]

the oil is below 50 bcs we don't use it at all. the oil producers and oil merchants would rather to drink some iol but they know exactly that it is undrinkable. We refuse to buy cars from the big three who make no car whose oil cost is below 4 gallon/mile:lol. We tend to buy japanese cars that nealy use no oil through 10 miles or even more. the problem is that we can just dig the oil out of the ground but can not inject the oil back.

[Heath Ledger]

Isn't it funny how mum is the word on alternate engery sources since oil has fallen? That texas oil tycoon has recently cancelled/postponed his plans to put up windmills ever since the bottom has fallen out as well. This country just does not get it, its inevitable we will see high oil prices again perhaps much higher than the latest spike. Yet we will be crying about it when it happens the next time and shit stilll won't get done.

[MannyIsGod]

Isn't it funny how mum is the word on alternate engery sources since oil has fallen? That texas oil tycoon has recently cancelled/postponed his plans to put up windmills ever since the bottom has fallen out as well. This country just does not get it, its inevitable we will see high oil prices again perhaps much higher than the latest spike. Yet we will be crying about it when it happens the next time and shit stilll won't get done.

Pickens hasn't canceled anything AFAIK.

[RandomGuy]

One note that should concern everybody.

We are in the middle of a global recession, but oil is still hovering around $50/bbl, meaning that is the current price point at the intersection of the supply curve and the demand curve.

What happens when demand picks up during the recovery?

The demand curve will shift and the supply curve will stay fairly constant.

Increased demand + stable supply = increased price point.

Do not ever count on gasoline being cheaper than it is now.

My gut feeling says that oil will cross the $100/bbl threshold within about 6 years, and $200 within 15 years.

That will translate into much higher prices for gas, probably around $3/gal within 6 years, and $5.50 or so within 15.

These are just gut feelings, but you heard it here first.

[RandomGuy]

One note that should concern everybody.

We are in the middle of a global recession, but oil is still hovering around $50/bbl, meaning that is the current price point at the intersection of the supply curve and the demand curve.

What happens when demand picks up during the recovery?

The demand curve will shift and the supply curve will stay fairly constant.

Increased demand + stable supply = increased price point.

Do not ever count on gasoline being cheaper than it is now.

My gut feeling says that oil will cross the $100/bbl threshold within about 6 years, and $200 within 15 years.

That will translate into much higher prices for gas, probably around $3/gal within 6 years, and $5.50 or so within 15.

These are just gut feelings, but you heard it here first.

Looks like it hit $3 a lot sooner.

Anybody want to take a pool as to when it will hit $6?

[SnakeBoy]

Anybody want to take a pool as to when it will hit $6?

When your predictions aren't so horribly wrong.

[Blake]

Looks like it hit $3 a lot sooner.

Anybody want to take a pool as to when it will hit $6?

with the increase of alternative ways to run vehicles, I think the demand for oil will stay steady.

[boutons_deux]

"alternative ways to run vehicles"

ain't nothing gonna have a real impact for many, many years.

Everything running on 4-cyl diesels and getting 50+ mpg like VW Jetta and similar exposes hybrids (two propulsion systems, one with a life of only 5 years) as incredibly stupid.

They're ain't enough lithium on the planet to make all those proprietary, very expensive, short-lived batteries that cost $5K+ to replace and wipe out, eg, Prius' gasoline savings.

And why is the car mfr in the battery fuel business? The aren't in the gasoline fuel business. Dumb

[Blake]

"alternative ways to run vehicles"

ain't nothing gonna have a real impact for many, many years.

Everything running on 4-cyl diesels and getting 50+ mpg like VW Jetta and similar exposes hybrids (two propulsion systems, one with a life of only 5 years) as incredibly stupid.

They're ain't enough lithium on the planet to make all those proprietary, very expensive, short-lived batteries that cost $5K+ to replace and wipe out, eg, Prius' gasoline savings.

And why is the car mfr in the battery fuel business? The aren't in the gasoline fuel business. Dumb

eh, not just hybrids but natural gas.

There's a number of other reasons I don't see gas ever hitting $6 a gallon.

[Bartleby]

with the increase of alternative ways to run vehicles, I think the demand for oil will stay steady.

Not with China and India getting into the auto market as consumers.

[boutons_deux]

"natural gas."

phracking will, and does, phuck our water and our earth with all those proprietary, exempted chemicals the drillers bugger the Mother Earth with.

And guess what, they'll get the profits from the phracking, and we'll be stuck paying for cleaning up their pollution and ruined water supplies and living with/dying from diseases.

[RandomGuy]

eh, not just hybrids but natural gas.

There's a number of other reasons I don't see gas ever hitting $6 a gallon.

Want to bet a case of good beer?

I give it about 10-12 years, based on an average run up of about 6-7% per year.

If you are still here in 10 years... heh

[RandomGuy]

When your predictions aren't so horribly wrong.

That would actually be a motive to bet against me. :lol

[boutons_deux]

With world-wide gasoline/oil demand down, why is the price up?

My bet is that it's commodity speculators/traders forcing it up to win some bets they made months ago. Then they'll bet on the price coming down, and win those short-sell bets, too.

[RandomGuy]

With world-wide gasoline/oil demand down, why is the price up?

My bet is that it's commodity speculators/traders forcing it up to win some bets they made months ago. Then they'll bet on the price coming down, and win those short-sell bets, too.

Remember that India and China both are growing their economies at rather impressive clips.

The market for cars is now larger in China than it is the US, meaning they are rapidly overtaking us in terms of number of drivers, if not overall miles driven, so their demand for oil is growing far faster than ours.

[boutons_deux]

"India and China"

supply 86 md/bd vs demand 70 mb/d http://omrpublic.iea.org/

The oil price is all about traders, not supply/demand.

US refiners are also closing refineries to restrict supply (and avoid refurbishing old refineries), force up the price. Gotta love those heavily taxpayer-subsidized oil/gas corps.

[TeyshaBlue]

"natural gas."

phracking will, and does, phuck our water and our earth with all those proprietary, exempted chemicals the drillers bugger the Mother Earth with.

And guess what, they'll get the profits from the phracking, and we'll be stuck paying for cleaning up their pollution and ruined water supplies and living with/dying from diseases.

It's fracking. And that's routine with oil wells as well. The main problem with a bad frac job is not the chemicals or the brine, even. It's usually the natural gas that finds it's way into the water table. Burning tap water is not unheard of in my old stomping grounds.

[Wild Cobra]

Looks like it hit $3 a lot sooner.

Anybody want to take a pool as to when it will hit $6?
With the democrats in power... Maybe two more years.

[Sec24Row7]

"natural gas."

phracking will, and does, phuck our water and our earth with all those proprietary, exempted chemicals the drillers bugger the Mother Earth with.

And guess what, they'll get the profits from the phracking, and we'll be stuck paying for cleaning up their pollution and ruined water supplies and living with/dying from diseases.


First of all... it is FRAC

Secondly Oil and Gas Companies are already required to put protection pipe up and cement in over ANY potable groundwater reservoirs.

The fracturing that has been done for YEARS has had no effect on any groundwater anywhere and in most cases the frac is thousands of feet away from the base of the water...

[boutons_deux]

"for YEARS has had no effect on any groundwater anywhere"

do you work for oil/gas companies? because You Lie

[Sec24Row7]

"for YEARS has had no effect on any groundwater anywhere"
do you work for oil/gas companies? because You Lie

Do you work for tampax? because you are a douchebag

[Wild Cobra]

Do you work for tampax? because you are a douchebag
Maybe he does. All I know is he uses 'depends' the way he depends on the government.

http://www.us.depend.com/Images/home-slide.jpg

[boutons_deux]

So rather that refute my claim that You Lie that fracking has neve caused any groundwater pollution, or any problems at all, you jerk off.

[Wild Cobra]

So rather that refute my claim that You Lie that fracking has neve caused any groundwater pollution, or any problems at all, you jerk off.
I'm sorry. Since that's how you respond to everything, I thought that was all you understood.

[boutons_deux]

"how you respond to everything"

Lies get a "You Lie" response, and since you wrongies nearly always lie, You Lie is to your everything.

You Lie:

"In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies."

http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113

... just one of MANY instances where fracking is the primary suspect in destroying ground water supplies, aquifers.

so, You Lie that fracking is NEVER a problem. Go Frac Yourself.

[Wild Cobra]

"how you respond to everything"

Lies get a "You Lie" response, and since you wrongies nearly always lie, You Lie is to your everything.

You Lie:

"In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies."

http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113

... just one of MANY instances where fracking is the primary suspect in destroying ground water supplies, aquifers.

so, You Lie that fracking is NEVER a problem. Go Frac Yourself.
That does not compute.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there is an association with natural gas and benzene. Can you show me the process that collecting natural gas leads to benzene please. I was unable to find the chemical process.

[Sec24Row7]

"how you respond to everything"

Lies get a "You Lie" response, and since you wrongies nearly always lie, You Lie is to your everything.

You Lie:

"In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies."

That site you linked from is a yellow journalism hack site with nothing but links to people angry at the oil and gas industry...

The Bakken shale... which is what they are talking about in their article... is 7-10 thousand feet deep

http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113

... just one of MANY instances where fracking is the primary suspect in destroying ground water supplies, aquifers.

so, You Lie that fracking is NEVER a problem. Go Frac Yourself.

That link is to a yellow journalism website with a hard on for natural gas producers.

The Bakken shale which is what they are talking about in Wyoming is 7-10000 feet deep... much deeper than the 300 foot ground water reservoir that they are talking about. The fracturing is done in stages and does not migrate up that far... in fact there are several safeguards that it will not.

1 the frac goes to the path of least resistance... which prohibits it coming through the rock up to the surface because of the many changes in tensile stregth...

2 it is actually designed to get a certain amount of penetration OUT... it is in the company's economic interest that the frac stay in the formation that it was intended to be in... the more fracturing of the target, the more production...

3 there is cemented protection pipe over all potable ground water.

The "Oily Substance" he mentioned? Dunno what that is... it's not frac fluid... they don't use oil based gels... or if it is hydrocarbons mixed with frac fluid, they have a leak in their casing and it is getting into that formation via the well bore...

They are not fracing from 7000 feet into a 300 foot aquifer... not gonna happen.

I guess it could be oil based drilling mud? but if they have a leak in their protection pipe up the hole they are breaking EXISTING regulations and need to deal with it and pay reparations... not make new laws against fracturing which didn't cause the problem.

[Sec24Row7]

Since this is a pretty big hackjob of an article I thought there might be a written response by someone who has actually done some research into this guys facts...

What do you know?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, ProPublica author Abrahm Lustgarten has written a defense of his article. He claims that my article is "indisputably misleading." Let's take a look at each of the three charges which I leveled at the ProPublica article.

1. I wrote:

The theme of the ProPublica article, headlined "Buried Secrets," is the natural gas industry's refusal to disclose a list of all chemicals which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. The article accurately characterizes the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as the "most stringent" regulatory agency regarding hydraulic fracturing.

The COGCC promulgated its final draft rules on Nov. 7, before the Nov. 13 ProPublica article, and before its Nov. 17 appearance in the Post. The article misdescribes the new regulations, and, significantly, omits the fact that the commission's new disclosure rule is nearly identical to what the drilling company Halliburton proposed in its June testimony to the commission. Section 205 of the new regulations protects drillers' trade secrets about the precise chemical recipes, while mandating full disclosure when specifically needed by the state for health or environmental protection.

In the spring, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had proposed draft regulations which would have required natural gas drillers to disclose the exact recipes for the fluids which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. During summer hearings, the industry vehemently objected, and said that they would pull out of Colorado, rather than disclose their trade secrets. Lustgarten's article accurately describes this part of the story.

Then, according to Lustgarten:

In August, the industry struck a compromise by agreeing to reveal the chemicals in fracturing fluids to health officials and regulators — but the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in 50 gallon drums or larger. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming said in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients won't be disclosed.

"They’ll never get it," says Bruce Baizel, a Colorado attorney with the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, about the states’ quest for information. "Not unless they are willing to go through a lawsuit. When push comes to shove, Halliburton is there with its attorneys."

This is entirely wrong. Under section 205 of the the final draft rules, which were published on November, the reporting trigger is not 50 gallon drums, but whether an individual well site uses 500 more more pounds of a chemical product in a quarter. Significantly, fracking companies must disclose to the public the trade names of the fracking ingredients; moreover, whenever an environmental or health official needs information for a specific investigation, the companies must disclose the exact chemicals in their recipes, with the chemical list being treated a Confidential Business Information by the officials who receive the list. As a described in my article, the final rule is similar to what Halliburton proposed in its June 6, 2008 testimony.

Lustgarten's January 12 self-exculpation does not even mention his misdescription of the regulations, and does not attempt any rebuttal of my evidence that he falsely accused the natural gas industry of hiding "buried secrets" even though the industry had proposed a disclosure rule and the "most stringent" (Lustgarten's words) agency had adopted something very close to that rule.

2. A second issue is Lustgarten's bait and switch about data. The article includes an extensive discussion of a case in Sublette County, Wyoming, in which groundwater was alleged to have been contaminated by hydraulic fracturing, and in which the federal Bureau of Land Management determined that fracturing might be the cause. Lustgarten wrote:

The contamination in Sublette County is significant because it is the first to be documented by a federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In one case, a house exploded after hydraulic fracturing created underground passageways and methane seeped into the residential water supply. In other cases, the contamination occurred not from actual drilling below ground, but on the surface, where accidental spills and leaky tanks, trucks and waste pits allowed benzene and other chemicals to leach into streams, springs and water wells.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of each contamination, or measure its spread across the environment accurately, because the precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets.

In an e-mail to Lustgarten, I specifically asked him what he now calls "a precisely tailored question." I asked him for the documentation of his claim that there were over a thousand "documented" state and local cases of groundwater contamination from "hydraulic fracturing." ("where can the data be found which substantiate the fact about over a thousand documented cases of contamination from fracking in five states?") He responded by pointing to the Colorado and New Mexico agencies. ("The New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission have together documented more than 1000 cases where water was contaminated by drilling activities.") I asked the Colorado and New Mexico agencies the same question I had asked Lustgarten, and the response was "zero" for Colorado; and that New Mexico has no such data.

Now, Lustgarten says that all along he was talking about any water contamination that resulted in any way from oil or gas drilling--such as leakage of chemicals from a waste pit on an oil-drilling site.

But that's not the question that I asked Lustgarten, and it's not what he wrote in his article. His article contrasts "the first to be documented by a federal agency" with "But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania." How many times do you think that any "federal agency" has "documented" groundwater contamination that resulted in any way from oil or natural gas drilling. If and only if the 2008 BLM case in Wyoming is the first and only case of such federal documentation can Lustgarten's defense of his article be true.

3. I also wrote that Lustgarten had falsely described a study by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission:

The Commission surveyed regulatory agencies in 28 states (including Colorado and the other four states where ProPublica claimed that there were more than 1,000 "documented" cases of contamination). The response covered the entire history of hydraulic fracturing in those states. Every single one of those 28 states reported that there had never been groundwater harm due to fracturing.

The ProPublica article did not report the evidence from that government study, but brusquely dismissed it as "an anecdotal survey done a decade ago." Actually, the 2002 study has no anecdotes, and with a dataset of almost a million wells, it cannot plausibly be considered "anecdotal."

There are three comprehensive studies about hydraulic fracturing: a 2004 study by the EPA; a second, earlier, study about the same subject as the EPA study (groundwater safety as it relates to about hydraulic fracturing in coal methane beds); and the third study, mentioned above, by the Interstate Commission. My article mentioned and discussed only the third study.

Lustgarten writes:

The drilling industry, echoed by Kopel, cites three documents when asserting the environmental safety of hydraulic fracturing. They are a 2004 EPA study (PDF), a 2002 survey of state agencies (PDF) by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and a similar survey in 1998 by the Ground Water Protection Council (PDF).

In its Nov. 13 article, ProPublica detailed flaws in the EPA study and reported that the two surveys were "anecdotal," meaning that they included none of the basic data required to qualify as a scientific study.

To say the least, that's an extremely idiosyncratic meaning of "anecdotal." The dictionary defines "anecdotal" as "based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation."

"Anecdotal" is an accurate description of Lustgarten's article, which examines a few cases of alleged contamination. There's nothing wrong with anecdotal news stories. "Anecdotal" is not an accurate description of the Interstate Commission study, which has no anecdotes, and which collected decades of data from 28 state regulatory agencies.

Now, we find that Lustgarten apparently has his own definition of "anecdotal"--that is, something is "anecdotal" if does not include "the basic data required to qualify as a scientific study." Perhaps at some time Lustgarten will explain what basic data he thinks were lacking from the two studies. As a media critic, I would not have criticized him for offering plausible critiques of the studies. His article, however, did not contain any argument about what data he thought were missing, and his characterization of the studies as "anecdotal" was false and misleading--at least for readers who understand the word to mean what the dictionary says it means.

Today I received this e-mail from Mark Thiesse, a Wyoming groundwater regulator who is quoted in Lustgarten's original article:

I’d like to thank you for your recent editorial on the ProPublica article. I was one of the folks (I’m with the WY Dept of Env Quality) interviewed for this article by Mr. Lustgarten. I spent several hours on the phone and around a dozen follow up emails to try and help him write a factual article. Unfortunately he seemed to have his own agenda. The one error that was most blatant from my perspective was the "20 mile long plume" that he mentions. I must have told him 5 times that it was individual impacts to separate water wells due to water well drilling practices – not related to oil and gas drilling at all – but that did not make it into his article that way.

If you had to make an important decision, would you rely on the factual information in a ProPublica article? I have only studied one article from ProPublica in detail, but the organization's implausible efforts to defend the validity of a wildly inaccurate article would make me hestitate to rely on anything from ProPublica.
(link)
Bode:
Out of curiosity, is the organization defending the article, or the author?

[RandomGuy]

Since this is a pretty big hackjob of an article I thought there might be a written response by someone who has actually done some research into this guys facts...

What do you know?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, ProPublica author Abrahm Lustgarten has written a defense of his article. He claims that my article is "indisputably misleading." Let's take a look at each of the three charges which I leveled at the ProPublica article.

1. I wrote:

The theme of the ProPublica article, headlined "Buried Secrets," is the natural gas industry's refusal to disclose a list of all chemicals which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. The article accurately characterizes the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission as the "most stringent" regulatory agency regarding hydraulic fracturing.

The COGCC promulgated its final draft rules on Nov. 7, before the Nov. 13 ProPublica article, and before its Nov. 17 appearance in the Post. The article misdescribes the new regulations, and, significantly, omits the fact that the commission's new disclosure rule is nearly identical to what the drilling company Halliburton proposed in its June testimony to the commission. Section 205 of the new regulations protects drillers' trade secrets about the precise chemical recipes, while mandating full disclosure when specifically needed by the state for health or environmental protection.

In the spring, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission had proposed draft regulations which would have required natural gas drillers to disclose the exact recipes for the fluids which are injected into the ground in hydraulic fracturing. During summer hearings, the industry vehemently objected, and said that they would pull out of Colorado, rather than disclose their trade secrets. Lustgarten's article accurately describes this part of the story.

Then, according to Lustgarten:

In August, the industry struck a compromise by agreeing to reveal the chemicals in fracturing fluids to health officials and regulators — but the agreement applies only to chemicals stored in 50 gallon drums or larger. As a practical matter, drilling workers in Colorado and Wyoming said in interviews that the fluids are often kept in smaller quantities. That means at least some of the ingredients won't be disclosed.

"They’ll never get it," says Bruce Baizel, a Colorado attorney with the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, about the states’ quest for information. "Not unless they are willing to go through a lawsuit. When push comes to shove, Halliburton is there with its attorneys."

This is entirely wrong. Under section 205 of the the final draft rules, which were published on November, the reporting trigger is not 50 gallon drums, but whether an individual well site uses 500 more more pounds of a chemical product in a quarter. Significantly, fracking companies must disclose to the public the trade names of the fracking ingredients; moreover, whenever an environmental or health official needs information for a specific investigation, the companies must disclose the exact chemicals in their recipes, with the chemical list being treated a Confidential Business Information by the officials who receive the list. As a described in my article, the final rule is similar to what Halliburton proposed in its June 6, 2008 testimony.

Lustgarten's January 12 self-exculpation does not even mention his misdescription of the regulations, and does not attempt any rebuttal of my evidence that he falsely accused the natural gas industry of hiding "buried secrets" even though the industry had proposed a disclosure rule and the "most stringent" (Lustgarten's words) agency had adopted something very close to that rule.

2. A second issue is Lustgarten's bait and switch about data. The article includes an extensive discussion of a case in Sublette County, Wyoming, in which groundwater was alleged to have been contaminated by hydraulic fracturing, and in which the federal Bureau of Land Management determined that fracturing might be the cause. Lustgarten wrote:

The contamination in Sublette County is significant because it is the first to be documented by a federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In one case, a house exploded after hydraulic fracturing created underground passageways and methane seeped into the residential water supply. In other cases, the contamination occurred not from actual drilling below ground, but on the surface, where accidental spills and leaky tanks, trucks and waste pits allowed benzene and other chemicals to leach into streams, springs and water wells.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of each contamination, or measure its spread across the environment accurately, because the precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets.

In an e-mail to Lustgarten, I specifically asked him what he now calls "a precisely tailored question." I asked him for the documentation of his claim that there were over a thousand "documented" state and local cases of groundwater contamination from "hydraulic fracturing." ("where can the data be found which substantiate the fact about over a thousand documented cases of contamination from fracking in five states?") He responded by pointing to the Colorado and New Mexico agencies. ("The New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission have together documented more than 1000 cases where water was contaminated by drilling activities.") I asked the Colorado and New Mexico agencies the same question I had asked Lustgarten, and the response was "zero" for Colorado; and that New Mexico has no such data.

Now, Lustgarten says that all along he was talking about any water contamination that resulted in any way from oil or gas drilling--such as leakage of chemicals from a waste pit on an oil-drilling site.

But that's not the question that I asked Lustgarten, and it's not what he wrote in his article. His article contrasts "the first to be documented by a federal agency" with "But more than 1,000 other cases of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania." How many times do you think that any "federal agency" has "documented" groundwater contamination that resulted in any way from oil or natural gas drilling. If and only if the 2008 BLM case in Wyoming is the first and only case of such federal documentation can Lustgarten's defense of his article be true.

3. I also wrote that Lustgarten had falsely described a study by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission:

The Commission surveyed regulatory agencies in 28 states (including Colorado and the other four states where ProPublica claimed that there were more than 1,000 "documented" cases of contamination). The response covered the entire history of hydraulic fracturing in those states. Every single one of those 28 states reported that there had never been groundwater harm due to fracturing.

The ProPublica article did not report the evidence from that government study, but brusquely dismissed it as "an anecdotal survey done a decade ago." Actually, the 2002 study has no anecdotes, and with a dataset of almost a million wells, it cannot plausibly be considered "anecdotal."

There are three comprehensive studies about hydraulic fracturing: a 2004 study by the EPA; a second, earlier, study about the same subject as the EPA study (groundwater safety as it relates to about hydraulic fracturing in coal methane beds); and the third study, mentioned above, by the Interstate Commission. My article mentioned and discussed only the third study.

Lustgarten writes:

The drilling industry, echoed by Kopel, cites three documents when asserting the environmental safety of hydraulic fracturing. They are a 2004 EPA study (PDF), a 2002 survey of state agencies (PDF) by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and a similar survey in 1998 by the Ground Water Protection Council (PDF).

In its Nov. 13 article, ProPublica detailed flaws in the EPA study and reported that the two surveys were "anecdotal," meaning that they included none of the basic data required to qualify as a scientific study.

To say the least, that's an extremely idiosyncratic meaning of "anecdotal." The dictionary defines "anecdotal" as "based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation."

"Anecdotal" is an accurate description of Lustgarten's article, which examines a few cases of alleged contamination. There's nothing wrong with anecdotal news stories. "Anecdotal" is not an accurate description of the Interstate Commission study, which has no anecdotes, and which collected decades of data from 28 state regulatory agencies.

Now, we find that Lustgarten apparently has his own definition of "anecdotal"--that is, something is "anecdotal" if does not include "the basic data required to qualify as a scientific study." Perhaps at some time Lustgarten will explain what basic data he thinks were lacking from the two studies. As a media critic, I would not have criticized him for offering plausible critiques of the studies. His article, however, did not contain any argument about what data he thought were missing, and his characterization of the studies as "anecdotal" was false and misleading--at least for readers who understand the word to mean what the dictionary says it means.

Today I received this e-mail from Mark Thiesse, a Wyoming groundwater regulator who is quoted in Lustgarten's original article:

I’d like to thank you for your recent editorial on the ProPublica article. I was one of the folks (I’m with the WY Dept of Env Quality) interviewed for this article by Mr. Lustgarten. I spent several hours on the phone and around a dozen follow up emails to try and help him write a factual article. Unfortunately he seemed to have his own agenda. The one error that was most blatant from my perspective was the "20 mile long plume" that he mentions. I must have told him 5 times that it was individual impacts to separate water wells due to water well drilling practices – not related to oil and gas drilling at all – but that did not make it into his article that way.

If you had to make an important decision, would you rely on the factual information in a ProPublica article? I have only studied one article from ProPublica in detail, but the organization's implausible efforts to defend the validity of a wildly inaccurate article would make me hestitate to rely on anything from ProPublica.
(link)
Bode:
Out of curiosity, is the organization defending the article, or the author?

This made me kinda glad I go through some of my old subscribed threads occasionally.

Thanks!

[RandomGuy]

I thought it was supposed to hit 80-100 bucks and gas to $4 a gallon by now. According to nbadan that is!

Oil is at 80 bucks a barrel now, a few short years later, even in the middle of a US economic downturn.

One of my favorite failed "ha ha!" moments.

85 by the middle of next year, even in a slow US economic environment, according to the Economists' commodities guy, who predicts swings above 100 or so will happen then too.

That is generally in line with my moderate 6-7% per year prediction for the next 15-20 years.

I will check back in after another year or two.

[CosmicCowboy]

Its got nothing to do with oil going "up". It's the fact that oil is denominated in dollars and the dollar is going to shit. The price/supply/demand for oil is quite stable right now. The "increase" in oil prices is directly related to the Fed flooding the market with dollars.

[CosmicCowboy]

Thats why the US doesn't use energy and food (other commodity) prices when calculating the US inflation rate. They can claim price inflation is lower than it really is...so you get price inflation without wage inflation.

[RandomGuy]

Its got nothing to do with oil going "up". It's the fact that oil is denominated in dollars and the dollar is going to shit. The price/supply/demand for oil is quite stable right now. The "increase" in oil prices is directly related to the Fed flooding the market with dollars.

To some extent, I would agree.

But, since the renmenbi is pegged to the dollar (#2 oil consumer), and the yen is falling in value (#3 oil consumer), the euro has actually fallen against the dollar (cumulatively the other large oil consumer), and others haven't really moved all that much in the interim since 2005, I don't think the case can be made that it is only moving in response to currency fluctuations, or even mostly.

You would have to present a bit more evidence to support that. Please be my guest, I genuinely would like to know how exactly they relate. My understanding is that it is more supply/demand at work.

Too bad scott doesn't post more, he could probably speak to it more authoritatively.

[boutons_deux]

"The "increase" in oil prices is directly related to the Fed flooding the market with dollars."

nah, there no demand vs supply dramatically different than 2001 when dubya came into office at $35/barrel.

The commodity traders, in cahoots with the oil countries and the US/UK oilcos, are propping up the price of oil, and the US is exporting 100s of $Bs of national wealth overseas, and burning 70% of the oil for transport. Unsustainable, but nobody will dare mention the word.

[RandomGuy]

"The "increase" in oil prices is directly related to the Fed flooding the market with dollars."

nah, there no demand vs supply dramatically different than 2001 when dubya came into office at $35/barrel.

The commodity traders, in cahoots with the oil countries and the US/UK oilcos, are propping up the price of oil, and the US is exporting 100s of $Bs of national wealth overseas, and burning 70% of the oil for transport. Unsustainable, but nobody will dare mention the word.

Acually it is very different. The Chinese used to be net exporters.

Now they import more oil than Japan, and are #2 in imports, after the USA.

Currently at $100 now.

[boutons_deux]

"Currently at $100 now"

Traders know how to bet on the price up/downs.

Half of Libya’s oil production shut down

Brent futures hit $110 as turmoil continues

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Libya Chaos Could Leave 'Lasting Scars' On Region's Oil

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/23/libya-oil_n_826959.html?view=print

Big Oil’s lust for tax loopholes
Oil prices and profits rise while big oil defends its tax loopholes

http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/31/big-oiltax-loopholes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Cli mate+Progress%29

======

BigOil (and BigLNG) will reap $10Bs in windfall profits from the M/E turmoil, and yet we give them $Bs in tax breaks, subsidies, uncollected royalties. The power of BigOil to fuck America is without challenge.

Just another case where the corps do what's best for the corps, while pre-empting/buying-off any challenge to their power, and while fucking people, environment, the planet.

[CosmicCowboy]

Yep...time to sell the Eddie Bauer Expedition. Stole it in 2008 when oil hit $140. I can still get more for it today after putting 50K miles on it than I paid for it. Thinking about putting the significant other in a Ford Edge...anyone got one? Like it?

[RandomGuy]

Yep...time to sell the Eddie Bauer Expedition. Stole it in 2008 when oil hit $140. I can still get more for it today after putting 50K miles on it than I paid for it. Thinking about putting the significant other in a Ford Edge...anyone got one? Like it?



New 3.5L Ti-VCT V6 -- unmatched power and economy.

Fuel economy no other CUV can beat*
Best-in-class 285 horsepower*

"*EPA-estimated 19 city/27 highway/22 combined mpg, FWD. Actual mileage will vary. Class is Midsize Crossovers vs. 2010/2011 Competitors."

Not too bad for a six cylander.

Market for used cars is pretty solid these days. I noted an interesting article the other day that says that has changed the economics of leasing then buying the car afterwards.

[CosmicCowboy]

Not too bad for a six cylander.

Market for used cars is pretty solid these days. I noted an interesting article the other day that says that has changed the economics of leasing then buying the car afterwards.

Yeah, but since I own the Expedition free and clear I think I will just roll that equity into the new one. If I can get 17K trade in and finance the balance (maybe 15K) on a hard loaded Edge with close to 0% interest and dealer incentives that makes for some pretty cheap driving. That 100K warranty on the new ones is pretty attractive.

[RandomGuy]

Oil pressure rising

A MONTH ago Brent crude oil stood at around $96 a barrel and Hosni Mubarak was ensconced as Egypt’s ruler. Now he is gone, overthrown by a display of people power that is shaking autocratic leaders across north Africa and the Middle East. And oil has surged above $111. Little wonder. The region provides 35% of the world’s oil. Libya, the scene of growing violence this week, produces 1.7m of the world’s 88m barrels a day (b/d).

So far prices have not been pushed up by actual disruptions to supply. Oil hit a peak even before news emerged that some foreign oil companies operating in Libya would stop some production and that the country’s ports had temporarily closed. As Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank points out, oil prices are driven both by current conditions and by future expectations.

Oil markets don’t like surprises. The sudden ousting of Mr Mubarak and the unrest in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Algeria (which between them supply a tenth of the world’s oil) have added 16% to oil prices. But the big worry is that spreading unrest will culminate in another shock akin to the oil embargo of 1973, the Iranian revolution or Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

...

If Libya’s oil stopped flowing importers would look to Saudi Arabia to make up the shortfall. The oil could probably flow to fill the gap in Europe, Libya’s main market, in a matter of weeks. OPEC claims that it has 6m b/d on tap but that looks wishful. Analysts think the true number is nearer 4m-5m b/d, with 3m-3.5m b/d in Saudi hands. That is ample to plug a Libyan gap but would hasten the day when growing world demand sucks up all spare production capacity and sends oil prices rocketing. Analysts at Nomura reckon that it would only take a halt of exports from Algeria as well to absorb all the slack and propel oil to a terrifying $220 a barrel.

Despite rising prices, Saudi Arabia has so far been reluctant to turn its stopcocks. OPEC claims that the world is amply supplied with oil and seems content with a price around $100 a barrel. Traders hope that Saudi Arabia will boost production stealthily or that OPEC will call a special meeting to raise quotas and calm markets.

...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/02/arab_worlds_unrest_and_oil_prices

[DarrinS]

Is the moratorium on gulf drilling still in affect?

[DarrinS]

Little known fact that the last oil refinery built in the US started up in 1976.

[Nbadan]

BigOil (and BigLNG) will reap $10Bs in windfall profits from the M/E turmoil, and yet we give them $Bs in tax breaks, subsidies, uncollected royalties. The power of BigOil to fuck America is without challenge.

You underestimate the power of the MIC....a one trillion dollar plus money pit...

[johnsmith]

This will be the only time I advocate government growth........President Obama, I call on you sir to force American companies to switch to the following policy in order to ease up oil consumption: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the 4 day work week.

[ElNono]

Airplane fares going up again (http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/23/news/companies/airfare_hikes/)... they didn't went down when the gas went down... now they're jacking it up again...

I'm tired of hiding all this bullshit behind oil prices... (http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/22/news/companies/airline_fares_profits/index.htm?iid=EAL)

[Yonivore]

http://rlv.zcache.com/drill_here_drill_now_stickers-p217928780811542676qjcl_400.jpg
It is time...Hell, it's way past time.

Lift the contemptible moratorium, open ANWR, and let our oil industry loose.

Hell, you want a government jobs program I can get behind, start building fucking refineries!

Lets go!

[Cant_Be_Faded]

bad bump, considering the OP


This run on oil is to completely expected. Anyone with a decent head was already holding at least some oil stocks for quite some time now. This ain't hurtin me :smokin

[johnsmith]

Stop pretending this is about supply and demand.............IT'S FUCKING NOT!!!!

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Actually it is

It's about the fear of lower supply

[johnsmith]

Actually it is

It's about the fear of lower supply

Really? So you think the price of a barrel of oil as it is currently being traded, is justified?





I hope you get hit by a car.

[ChumpDumper]

Little known fact that the last oil refinery built in the US started up in 1976.It's quite well known.

If somehow you are trying to suggest that the US has not increased its refining capacity since 1976, you are simply lying.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Really? So you think the price of a barrel of oil as it is currently being traded, is justified?





I hope you get hit by a car.

Who said that?
The price of oil is going up because of fear of lower supply and speculation based on that fear.

[ChumpDumper]

http://rlv.zcache.com/drill_here_drill_now_stickers-p217928780811542676qjcl_400.jpg
It is time...Hell, it's way past time.

Lift the contemptible moratorium, open ANWR, and let our oil industry loose.

Hell, you want a government jobs program I can get behind, start building fucking refineries!

Lets go!Why do people think that new drilling automatically means significantly lower oil prices?

Or that US refineries always work at 100% capacity?

Or that petroleum companies want to add significantly more capacity when they aren't using all that is already available?

[johnsmith]

Ok Captain Emotional, you are right, it's about fear......and that fear is clearly justified, even though plenty of supply exists to meet demand and we all know will continue far beyond what the "futures" call for.......and weird that you are justifying the price right after you speak about making money off of it..........How very "conservative" of you.

[johnsmith]

Why do people think that new drilling automatically means significantly lower oil prices?

Or that US refineries always work at 100% capacity?

Or that petroleum companies want to add significantly more capacity when they aren't using all that is already available?

Exactly right. The price of oil has very little to do with whether or not we "drill now".

[Wild Cobra]

if we put half the money into green technology as we do into other bullshit we'd be using much less oil by now

bastards don't want that though because the US has been run by big oil companies for years now
Can you show evidence for that contention, or are you increasing global warming with all that hot air?

[RandomGuy]

Little known fact that the last oil refinery built in the US started up in 1976.

Relevance fail:

Little known fact among people who bitch about that fact is that expansions in existing refinery capacity and efficiency gains have added at least the equivalent of a medium-sized capacity refinery every year since 1976, despite the closing of older, outdated refineries since then.

[RandomGuy]

http://rlv.zcache.com/drill_here_drill_now_stickers-p217928780811542676qjcl_400.jpg
It is time...Hell, it's way past time.

Lift the contemptible moratorium, open ANWR, and let our oil industry loose.

Hell, you want a government jobs program I can get behind, start building fucking refineries!

Lets go!

The US holds 2% of known proven global oil reserves.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/World_Oil_Reserves_by_Region.PNG/300px-World_Oil_Reserves_by_Region.PNG

Go for it.

Just how many jobs do you think would be created?
How much of a difference in oil/gasoline price would there be if we went all out?
How long would that oil last if we did?

[CosmicCowboy]

The US holds 2% of known proven global oil reserves.

Go for it.

Just how many jobs do you think would be created?



Uhhh...Eagle Ford play alone had a 3 Billion impact in South Texas last year.

[RandomGuy]

Uhhh...Eagle Ford play alone had a 3 Billion impact in South Texas last year.

Yoni's point was that we haven't "let our oil industry loose" and need to do something different to create tons of jobs.

Thanks for helping me deflate that.

We are already drilling here and drilling now.

Now, can you tell me how many jobs that means? (always good to have solid data on these things)

[Yonivore]

Yoni's point was that we haven't "let our oil industry loose" and need to do something different to create tons of jobs.

Thanks for helping me deflate that.

We are already drilling here and drilling now.

Now, can you tell me how many jobs that means? (always good to have solid data on these things)
How many jobs were lost due to the moratorium? How many jobs are lost due to the failure to drill in ANWR or any of the so-called "no go" zones off our coasts?

[RandomGuy]

Just how many jobs do you think would be created?
How much of a difference in oil/gasoline price would there be if we went all out?
How long would that oil last if we did?


1)How many jobs were lost due to the moratorium?
2) How many jobs are lost due to the failure to drill in ANWR or any of the so-called "no go" zones off our coasts?

1) Best guess seems to be on the order of about 12,000-20,000, although such losses are probably temporary, to my understanding.

2) Probably very few, seeing as how the oil companies have not even begun to explore even a small fraction of the area they are allowed to go now.

Your turn. I would like my questions answered, please.

1) Just how many jobs do you think would be created?
2) How much of a difference in oil/gasoline price would there be if we went all out?
3) How long would that oil last if we did?

[boutons_deux]

Oil in US areas has become so scarce, so hard to find, so expensive to extract that the oilcos are instead raping Mother America by fracking for natural gas.

While gaining $Bs in gas, they will of course externalizing all the collateral damage to taxpayers. Private gain, public expense.

[Yonivore]

1) Best guess seems to be on the order of about 12,000-20,000, although such losses are probably temporary, to my understanding.
Best guess? Your understanding?


2) Probably very few, seeing as how the oil companies have not even begun to explore even a small fraction of the area they are allowed to go now.
Probably?


Your turn. I would like my questions answered, please.
:lmao Okay.


1) Just how many jobs do you think would be created?
Best Guess seems to be on the order of a fucking butt load.


2) How much of a difference in oil/gasoline price would there be if we went all out?
Probably a whole hell of a lot more than we're seeing now.


3) How long would that oil last if we did?
You didn't provide me with a third indefinite non-answer.

Your turn.

[RandomGuy]

Best guess? Your understanding?


Probably?


:lmao Okay.


Best Guess seems to be on the order of a fucking butt load.


Probably a whole hell of a lot more than we're seeing now.


You didn't provide me with a third indefinite non-answer.

Your turn.

Translation:
"Randomguy, I have no clue what I am really talking about, and am more interested in making emotional arguments than rational or logical ones based on actual data."

Ok then.

Carry on, jester. Dance!

[Nbadan]

Oil could explode....Gaddafi is bombing his shit...


The Libyan air force has bombed the oil refinery and port town of Marsa El Brega as battles between forces loyal and against Muammar Gaddafi raged in several towns across the North African country.

"We just watched an air force jet ... fly over Brega and drop at least one bomb and huge plumes of smoke are now coming out ," Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley said on Wednesday.

Link (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/20113242554921501.html)

There is no telling where this could drive prices....even worse, groups are organizing in Saudi Arabia as we lean on the Saudi to open the pumps...

[Wild Cobra]

5/21/11 is the rapture. Heard it on Coast to Coast AM yesterday, must be true.

[RandomGuy]

http://rlv.zcache.com/drill_here_drill_now_stickers-p217928780811542676qjcl_400.jpg
It is time...Hell, it's way past time.

Lift the contemptible moratorium, open ANWR, and let our oil industry loose.

Hell, you want a government jobs program I can get behind, start building fucking refineries!

Lets go!

As long as those refineries are over your drinking water, and you are forced to drink the resulting well water.

Then I would be on board.

[RandomGuy]

Oil is at 80 bucks a barrel now, a few short years later, even in the middle of a US economic downturn.

One of my favorite failed "ha ha!" moments.

85 by the middle of next year, even in a slow US economic environment, according to the Economists' commodities guy, who predicts swings above 100 or so will happen then too.

That is generally in line with my moderate 6-7% per year prediction for the next 15-20 years.

I will check back in after another year or two.

One year price check:

http://www.reuters.com/finance/commodity

$100.98

Give or take a buck or two, a year later.

Looks like $100/bbl is sustainable, although costs at the pump have been coming down.

[RandomGuy]

What a difference a fracking boom makes.

Looks like oil falls back down from its highs back down to below $50 the other day for US crude.

Funny is that it happened on a Democratic presidents watch, much to Yonivore's chagrin, I'm sure.

[RandomGuy]

[from 2005, yikes!!--RG]
The answer isn't as simple as "stocks are building" or "we have plenty of supply". There are a lot of different variables pulling on the oil market right now, and the signal that $46 oil sends to Average Joe isn't necessarily the right one.



Maybe a little too much oversimplification, but generally accurate. WTI is in a steep contango, which encourages refineries with available storage capacity (this is a finite amount too) to purchase prompt while it is cheap. This is why we see stocks building. If you look at inventory optimization models, you basically need to factor the cost of holding excess inventory versus the cost of running out of crude versus the cost of maintaining a JIT inventory strategy. In a contango market (prompt prices lower than forward prices), you would want to hold inventory whereas in a backwardated market you would want to move to more of a JIT strategy.

Another critical reason for lower prompt WTI prices right now, and possibily more important, is that we are coming out of refinery maintenance season. A lot of hydroskimming and cracking refineries (as opposed to coking refineries) were under turnaround turning the first two quarters, especially in Asia. The result has been a relative decline in the demand for light sweet (which is the same thing as a relative increase in demand for medium to heavy sours).

In many ways, crude is NOT cheaper right now for some refineries. Because of the relative decrease in demand for light sweet, the relative price for medium to heavy sours has INCREASED. This can be most seen by the Maya discount to WTI over the last two months, which has risen from 18 under to around 10 under. PEMEX prices Maya off a formula which incorporates Fuel Oil, WTS, Brent, and LLS. Fuel Oil has really strenghtened as it has had a major demand pull from Asia as some of their energy facilities have switched to Fuel Oil in the short term while they are in turnarond season.

As these facilities that typically run light sweet come back on line, you should expect to see a moderate rise in prompt WTI prices (forward WTI is still above $50, btw). I say moderate, because the inventory builds we have seen recently should provide an offset to the increase in demand.



This is an interesting statement, because when you really think about it, it is the "cheap" oil that is coming into more of an abundance. It is just that we are not currently prepared to do anything about it.

Now, I know you were meaning that the days of cheap WTI are over, which I agree with save for the occassional cyclical recessions in the oil market. However, the incremental supply is widely accepted to be medium to heavy sour, despite the Saudi's claim they can come up with more light sweet. One thing is for certain, there will not be a great deal of light sweet coming online domestically.

So, the "cheap" medium to heavy sour will be available in the near to medium term for anyone who wants it, but right now... who does? This is the reason for record Maya and Mars spreads this year. You can pump a trillion barrels of Maya out of the ground, but without the upgrading and coking capacity at the refineries, it doesn't do anyone any good. More on this later.



Tar sands (shale) extraction is a good alternative of sorts, and I think it is a technology that will continue to grow at $40 oil just as it will at $80. I'd have to check some assays, but I believe SynCrude is a heavy sour and has an upper price limit independent of WTI prices. As WTI gets more expensive, the SynCrude discount just gets wider. We will see SynCrude and other Tar Sand crude demand increase just because it is a good product. The problem now is logistics. There is no easy way to get the stuff down to the major refining centers and for now it will remain a Group3 feedstock.

Coal to Liquids and Gas to Liquids are also two emerging areas, but the problem now is that it takes so much coal to produce so little product. Regardless of oil prices, my opinion is we are still a long way away from seeing real breakthroughs here. However, remember these alternative technologies are MORE economical at $40 oil with a $15 gas crack than they are at $50 oil with $3 gas crack. Watching product prices will give a better indicator than watching crude as to the velocity at which R&D moves.



As I've tried to hammer for a while now, the bottleneck continues to be refining capacity, and $80 oil doesn't really do anything to open that bottleneck. For refiners, the cost of oil is an expense and high oil is not good for refineries, all else held equal.

Right now, so much of refiner's relative capital budgets are tied into having to meet regulatory specs, that it leaves less to use for building upgrading capacity or expanding refineries. We are moving to 15 ppm sulfur diesel and gasoline, and building those sulfur plants, GDUs, and HCUs costs a lot of money. Also, it will see what happens with Ethanol. Lobbyists are doing a great job at getting into the ears of their politicians, and if the push for Ethanol continues, it will pull on gasoline supply. Using Ethanol as opposed to other oxygenates requires the use of MORE gasoline.

So, we are building a lot of desulfurization capacity on the product side, but the feedstock supply side isn't getting the necessary upgrades because funds are diverted to meet regulatory spec. This just further increases the demand for light sweet... pushing prices up (and sour discounts up as well).

Also, it is important to remember that oil is a highly cyclical business and all the oil companies have seen spikes like this before. They are cautious to run into multi billion projects when they aren't sure this isn't just a normal part of the historical 9 year cycle (4 up, 5 down). They don't want to get stuck in a project that the economics don't end up supporting 3 years down the road. There is a bit of a Keynesian price stickiness in that regard. I'd expect prices to stick in the $50s for a few more years, before settling around the new standard of $35-45 WTI.

Heh, looks like scott might have gotten a lucky dart in the dartboard.

[boutons_deux]

What a difference a fracking boom makes.

The fracking boom didn't cause anything until the Saudis reacted by continuing producing in the face of glut, down demand.

[CosmicCowboy]

The fracking boom didn't cause anything until the Saudis reacted by continuing producing in the face of glut, down demand.

what a stupid statement.

Who made it the Saudi's job to cut production so others could increase theirs?

[tlongII]

What a difference a fracking boom makes.

Looks like oil falls back down from its highs back down to below $50 the other day for US crude.

Funny is that it happened on a Democratic presidents watch, much to Yonivore's chagrin, I'm sure.

Yes, it's pretty funny considering that Democratic president had nothing to do with the fracking boom.

[CosmicCowboy]

Yes, it's pretty funny considering that Democratic president had nothing to do with the fracking boom.

I'm confident that Obama is happy the price crash is hurting Texas and Fracking in general.

[TeyshaBlue]

Drill here drill now for the win.
Gfy boutons.

[boutons_deux]

what a stupid statement.

Who made it the Saudi's job to cut production so others could increase theirs?

:lol what? the price is down because the Saudis won't cut their productiln, they want to maintain their market share.

[boutons_deux]

Drill here drill now for the win.
Gfy boutons.

37 of 38 fracking areas are selling the barrels for more then the world price. Pipe mfr in Houston laying off workers. Only people getting fucked around here are you BigOil shills and the frackers.

[pgardn]

The Saudis can't keep doing this.

So enjoy your drive now.
Come summer that extra cash savings driving won't exist.

[boutons_deux]

The Saudis can't keep doing this.

So enjoy your drive now.
Come summer that extra cash savings driving won't exist.

they have $1T+ in reserve, probably good for a couple years. probably a lot frackers are going to go tits up.

[pgardn]

they have $1T+ in reserve, probably good for a couple years. probably a lot frackers are going to go tits up.

You have no idea what price they pay with programs at home do you?
It won't last boots. Drive now. That summer vacation on the road... I'm bettin the airplane will still be flown.

[Blake]

"OPEC's Cheap Gas Agenda

Gas prices are plummeting, and OPEC doesn't seem likely to cut production anytime soon."

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/01/07/why-is-opec-content-to-let-gas-prices-fall

[TDMVPDPOY]

saudis can afford to play the pricing game vs frackers

russia is only doing deals with gold bullion now

[boutons_deux]

You have no idea what price they pay with programs at home do you?
It won't last boots. Drive now. That summer vacation on the road... I'm bettin the airplane will still be flown.

strawman, I didn't say it would "last", indefinitely. I said SA would keep pumping for a year or two. Quite long enough for a lot of frackers to go tits up, and default on their investors, etc which would really fuck up US financial sector again.

[RandomGuy]

they have $1T+ in reserve, probably good for a couple years. probably a lot frackers are going to go tits up.

Not as much as you might think. Many producers have hedges, and when the demand for trained people and drilling equipment dry up that will drive the price of both down, reducing production costs.

Supply/demand are dynamic forces, and will act to keep US/Canadian production more stable than one might think.

[RandomGuy]

I'm confident that Obama is happy the price crash is hurting Texas and Fracking in general.

Not quite yet, but heard some scuttlebutt that it is beginning to hit.

[RandomGuy]

:lol what? the price is down because the Saudis won't cut their productiln, they want to maintain their market share.

Correct.

[RandomGuy]

Yes, it's pretty funny considering that Democratic president had nothing to do with the fracking boom.

Presidents generally don't.

My point, ultimately was that, despite the scaremongering, Obama's administration doesn't have the effect on energy production that the hysterical h8ters like to claim.

[CosmicCowboy]

Not quite yet, but heard some scuttlebutt that it is beginning to hit.

Not scuttlebutt at all....already thousands of job layoffs and rigs getting stacked as they finish where they are at. It's gonna get ugly.

[RandomGuy]

Not scuttlebutt at all....already thousands of job layoffs and rigs getting stacked as they finish where they are at. It's gonna get ugly.

I will take your word for it, I haven't been reading related news on it.

[Th'Pusher]

Not scuttlebutt at all....already thousands of job layoffs and rigs getting stacked as they finish where they are at. It's gonna get ugly.

So everyone should go get their CDL license so they can haul oil and make $80k a year, right CC?

The only reason someone wouldn't have a job is because they're fucking worthless lazy pieces of human filth. Right CC?

[CosmicCowboy]

So everyone should go get their CDL license so they can haul oil and make $80k a year, right CC?

The only reason someone wouldn't have a job is because they're fucking worthless lazy pieces of human filth. Right CC?

You sure are a stupid little bitch.

The guys losing their jobs are on the front end of the production, not the back end.

And yeah, there are jobs out there. Might not be the "dream job" for disillusioned liberal arts majors but there are jobs.

[TeyshaBlue]

37 of 38 fracking areas are selling the barrels for more then the world price. Pipe mfr in Houston laying off workers. Only people getting fucked around here are you BigOil shills and the frackers.

Idiot.
This is nothing new nor is it anything the industry hadn't seen many times before. Gfy.

[TeyshaBlue]

Scott made that point abundantly clear as well.

[Th'Pusher]

You sure are a stupid little bitch.

The guys losing their jobs are on the front end of the production, not the back end.

And yeah, there are jobs out there. Might not be the "dream job" for disillusioned liberal arts majors but there are jobs.
Look you old fuck. Is demand for CDL drivers for oil going up or down right now in SouthTexas? Quit parsing and stop acting like an asshole.

[Nbadan]

Presidents generally don't.

My point, ultimately was that, despite the scaremongering, Obama's administration doesn't have the effect on energy production that the hysterical h8ters like to claim.

Not directly, but a president's foreign policy and an administration's regulation on domestic fracking can have an effect on prices at the pump, which is what most American care about...Obama's foreign policy to not start any new wars in gasland, wind down the old ones and let states regulate fracking has contributed to a oil glut...at the same time that technology is making energy moire efficient.....

[RandomGuy]

Not directly, but a president's foreign policy and an administration's regulation on domestic fracking can have an effect on prices at the pump, which is what most American care about...Obama's foreign policy to not start any new wars in gasland, wind down the old ones and let states regulate fracking has contributed to a oil glut...at the same time that technology is making energy moire efficient.....

Fair points

[scott]

Heh, looks like scott might have gotten a lucky dart in the dartboard.

Hey I knew a lot about the oil industry 10 years ago! Today? Eh, not so much.

[CosmicCowboy]

Helmerich & Payne yard in Odessa...understand the one in Seguin looks the same...They have so many rigs coming in from the field they can't even lay the masts down for lack of room...

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u336/corysmith_09/Mobile%20Uploads/6657B52F-2E8C-4C54-9FEE-8150D1B8D8AD_zpsyslyhvle.jpg

[Blake]

Gas prices creeping back up.

Will be over $2 again in the next week or so, imo.

[elbamba]

I drove by that today.

[Aztecfan03]

Gas prices creeping back up.

Will be over $2 again in the next week or so, imo.

lucky. I haven't gotten it for less than $2.25

[CosmicCowboy]

Gas prices creeping back up.

Will be over $2 again in the next week or so, imo.

labor strikes at the refineries have knocked out 10%+ of refining capacity.

[Blake]

lucky. I haven't gotten it for less than $2.25

The norm was around $1.79 here. I think the lowest I paid was $1.62 at Sams Club with the five cent member discount.

[CosmicCowboy]

Read that the unions starting offer was 6% raises every year. That certainly left them a lot of room to negotiate.

[RandomGuy]

Helmerich & Payne yard in Odessa...understand the one in Seguin looks the same...They have so many rigs coming in from the field they can't even lay the masts down for lack of room...



Going to guess those are all exploratory rigs.

From what I have been reading, a lot of the pumps out there today have already paid for themselves, so the glut is going to last for a long time, because the operating costs are low enough to still make money pumping.

The seasoned drillers bought new equipment, didn't take on debt, and fixed or upgraded what they could, so they will weather it. (yeah, NPR did a piece on it)

[CosmicCowboy]

Nope. Those are regular production rigs. They are still pouring into the yard...they have 40 more coming in.

[pgardn]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-rise-again-in-volatile-week-1423218645


This stuff is difficult to predict.
Since most of us relate this topic to price at the pump we can play a market timing game. I think people that do the, "fill it up now" , or the always popular, " I will get closer to empty before I fill up (deflationary attitude)", would be quite surprised at how poorly they do if accurate records are kept. Market timing is very tough for the average Joe.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-rise-again-in-volatile-week-1423218645

This stuff is difficult to predict.


supply isn't that volatile day-to-day, demand isn't that volatile day-to-day, so it's more than likely (big) speculators (which includes Kock Bros and other BigOil companies effectively "self dealing"), not "real" market forces. Remember when oil was well over $100+, an oil exec told Congress probably 30% of the price, $30-$40/barrel, was due to speculators.

[pgardn]

supply isn't that volatile day-to-day, demand isn't that volatile day-to-day, so it's more than likely (big) speculators (which includes Kock Bros and other BigOil companies effectively "self dealing"), not "real" market forces. Remember when oil was well over $100+, an oil exec told Congress probably 30% of the price, $30-$40/barrel, was due to speculators.

I never stated this was purely free market.
I said it was difficult to predict for the average Joe.

So you disagree. Why?

So much boot slappn to be done this morning. But alas, I am off.

[Winehole23]

I expect that the particular problem we are likely to reach in 2016 is limits to oil storage. This may happen at different times for crude oil and the various types of refined products. As storage fills, prices can be expected to drop to a very low level–less than $10 per barrel for crude oil, and correspondingly low prices for the various types of oil products, such as gasoline, diesel, and asphalt. We can then expect to face a problem with debt defaults, failing banks, and failing governments (especially of oil exporters).http://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/01/07/2016-oil-limits-and-the-end-of-the-debt-supercycle/

[boutons_deux]

First crude oil export cargo from Houston Ship Channel leaving this week
Although crude oil exports began last week, the first known crude export cargo from the Houston Ship Channel is expected to depart on Thursday evening or early Friday morning.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners said it began loading the Liberia-flagged Angelica Schulte tanker on Wednesday with 600,000 barrels of oil purchased by Switzerland-based Vitol, an international trading company that will market the oil in Europe.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/01/06/first-crude-oil-export-cargo-from-houston-ship-channel-leaving-this-week/

As BigOil exports US national treasure, Americans get stiffed.

[CosmicCowboy]

First crude oil export cargo from Houston Ship Channel leaving this week
Although crude oil exports began last week, the first known crude export cargo from the Houston Ship Channel is expected to depart on Thursday evening or early Friday morning.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners said it began loading the Liberia-flagged Angelica Schulte tanker on Wednesday with 600,000 barrels of oil purchased by Switzerland-based Vitol, an international trading company that will market the oil in Europe.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/01/06/first-crude-oil-export-cargo-from-houston-ship-channel-leaving-this-week/

As BigOil exports US national treasure, Americans get stiffed.




Boo finally figures out the US is now exporting oil. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Boo finally figures out the US is now exporting oil. :lol

You Lie

little butthurt CC is stalking me as much as TB :lol

[Winehole23]

Aramco IPO in the offing:


When one financial adviser heard about Saudi Arabia’s plans to list a company larger than the economies of most nations, he had to pull over his car because he was laughing so hard.


Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, said Friday it’s considering an initial public offering. It confirmed an interview with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/saudi-arabia-is-considering-aramco-ipo-deputy-crown-prince-says) published in the Economist Thursday. The news was greeted with incredulity in the financial industry, according to interviews with a half dozen bankers who do business in the Middle East. They asked not to be identified to protect their business interests.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-08/shock-laughter-greet-plan-for-saudi-arabian-sale-of-the-century

[CosmicCowboy]

Aramco IPO in the offing:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-08/shock-laughter-greet-plan-for-saudi-arabian-sale-of-the-century

I saw that. Pretty surprising. You don't do an IPO when you are "down" unless thee is something else going on.

Are they trying to cash out and diversify before the Shia start fucking with their eastern oil fields?...they could get fucked up in a hurry. The Saudi Monarchy has taken a radical turn and really kicked over the hornets nest whacking that Shia clerics head off.

[boutons_deux]

what are chances highly secretive ARAMCO will expose its financials, or is the market supposed to believe in "Allah will it"?

[Winehole23]

I saw that. Pretty surprising. You don't do an IPO when you are "down" unless thee is something else going on.

Are they trying to cash out and diversify before the Shia start fucking with their eastern oil fields?...they could get fucked up in a hurry. The Saudi Monarchy has taken a radical turn and really kicked over the hornets nest whacking that Shia clerics head off.the oil crash plus deficit spending plus demographics have the Saudis in a tough spot. deficit spending isn't sustainable at current levels with oil prices this low, but austerity has ominous implications for political stability internally and thus, for continued regional hegemony.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Saudi's are in the middle of several proxy wars. THose are pricey.

[Winehole23]

and a hot one in Yemen

[TeyshaBlue]

You Lie

little butthurt CC is stalking me as much as TB :lol
'Sup creeper?


Rent free. :lmao

[boutons_deux]

Mitt Romney: Obama to blame for high gas prices

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitt-romney-obama-to-blame-for-high-gas-prices/

[Winehole23]

the shakeout in junk bonds could be very, very painful:


But with oil falling below $30 and no bottom yet in sight, there is probably further pain ahead in the oil sector, according to Matthew Mish, global credit strategist at UBS, who also contends that prices on junk bonds outside of energy have not come down enough either.


“In energy, bond valuations are pricing in an uplift in underlying commodities, so there’s more downside risk if prices hold at these levels for a long time or go lower,” Mr. Mish said in an interview. And elsewhere, he added, “we do not see a marginal buyer for lower-quality credit.”


As evidence of the disconnect between the free fall in oil prices and energy bond prices, Mr. Mish noted in a report (https://neo.ubs.com/shared/d1ooB9MhjPYH4/?off_id=AC201601E89867144W470436974&ma=X45785A4241304553&camp_id=EM:UNKW:2016-01:13:U) issued on Wednesday that most high-yield issuers’ business models “don’t work with oil in the $20-$40 range.” In this environment, even energy bonds that are trading at distressed levels — 20 cents to 30 cents on the dollar — could be worth “close to zero in reorganization.”


Some retail investors have sold high-yield bond fund holdings recently, reducing overall exposure in this market to about $250 billion from $300 billion. Still, that’s a lot of money riding on what may constitute a “hope trade.”


David Kotok, chairman and chief executive of Cumberland Advisors (http://www.cumber.com/), which oversees $2 billion in assets in Sarasota, Fla., said his firm recently exited the high-yield corporate bond market entirely because of risks that he considers real but not yet evident.


“For six years, a subset of the investing class — and a large one — chased yield in complex ways, and by doing so they took on currency risk and exposure to commodity prices and emerging-market countries,” Mr. Kotok told me. “Now all three now are unraveling. I don’t need to see the fire — I see the smoke.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/junk-bonds-go-sour-but-the-question-is-how-sour.html

[Winehole23]

UAE offers free oil to India:


In an oil sector first, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) has offered free oil to India in return for a storage deal at India’s planned underground facility as the supply glut worsens and some analysts predict that ‘’peak storage” could sending prices crashing further.



The UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has agreed to store crude (http://scroll.in/latest/803361/uae-to-store-crude-oil-in-india-and-offer-two-thirds-of-it-for-free) oil in India's maiden strategic storage facility, sweetening the deal by saying India could take two-thirds of the oil for free.


It’s a great deal for India, which is almost fully reliant on imports to meet its crude oil needs.


India has lured Abu Dhabi in with the building of a massive underground storage facility system that will be able to take on 5.33 million tons of crude as a bulwark against global price shocks and supply disruptions.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/UAE-Offers-India-Free-Oil-To-Ease-Storage-Woes.html

[boutons_deux]

Iran ships first oil to Europe in 3 yearshttp://www.marketwatch.com/story/iran-ships-first-oil-to-europe-in-3-years-2016-02-15

[boutons_deux]

Drillers’ cash-flow gap expected to rise to $130 billion in 2016


HOUSTON – Oil-price projections for 2016 continue to fall, and analysts expect that will create an even bigger cash-flow gap for North American oil companies.

Consulting firm AlixPartners believes more than 130 oil drillers in the United States and Canada will come up $130 billion short on the internal cash they need to operate. That’s nearly a third higher than the firm’s projection of $102 billion last month.

Since January, banks and credit rating agencies have revised their oil-price forecasts lower amid expectations of slower economic growth and a stubbornly high crude oil glut. Morgan Stanley recently cut its 2016 outlook for U.S. crude by 11 percent to $37 a barrel.

Next year, U.S. crude will average $43.10 a barrel and, in 2018, $45.60 a barrel – a bleak forecast for producers in the United States and Canada given high break-even costs for drilling new wells. The International Energy Agency says break-even costs for shale drilling are about $59 a barrel; for upgraded Canadian oil sands projects, $95 a barrel.

AlixPartners said last month 2016 profits will come in 20 to 30 percent lower for North American drillers and returns on the capital they spend will be a meager 3 percent. And that’s just for companies that remain “in the black.”

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/02/15/drillers-cash-flow-gap-expected-to-rise-to-130-billion-in-2016/

[boutons_deux]

Saudi Arabia, Russia to Freeze Oil Output at Near-Record Levels

“If Iran and Iraq are not a part of the agreement, it’s not worth much -- and even then there is still a question of compliance.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/saudi-arabia-and-russia-agree-oil-output-freeze-in-qatar-talks

[Winehole23]

worse before it gets better:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d48b1922-eadd-11e5-bb79-2303682345c8.html#axzz43fKNnLgG

[Blake]

worse before it gets better:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d48b1922-eadd-11e5-bb79-2303682345c8.html#axzz43fKNnLgG

Subscription..

[Big Empty]

Does it go back up to 40.00? Im heavy in uwti. Was down big but up today!

[SpursforSix]

Does it go back up to 40.00? Im heavy in uwti. Was down big but up today!

I think so. But probably going to be in a range for a while. Up and down based on comments about the upcoming producers meetings and the storage report.
Storage report showed a big draw down this week as opposed to the anticipated build.

Was also a report of an explosion going off at an Iraqi site yesterday but didn't see anything else about it.

[Big Empty]

I think so. But probably going to be in a range for a while. Up and down based on comments about the upcoming producers meetings and the storage report.
Storage report showed a big draw down this week as opposed to the anticipated build.

Was also a report of an explosion going off at an Iraqi site yesterday but didn't see anything else about it.yea very unstable but hoping the bulls keep raising the price

[SpursforSix]

yea very unstable but hoping the bulls keep raising the price

So what are you in? Futures or options?

[Big Empty]

So what are you in? Futures or options?
Triple leveregad stock UWTI

[CosmicCowboy]

very interesting article

http://oilprice.com/Interviews/85-Crude-Oil-By-Christmas-An-Interview-With-Mike-Rothman.html

so assuming it's right what the best stock play today?

[SpursforSix]

very interesting article

http://oilprice.com/Interviews/85-Crude-Oil-By-Christmas-An-Interview-With-Mike-Rothman.html

so assuming it's right what the best stock play today?

Beats

[SpursforSix]

very interesting article

http://oilprice.com/Interviews/85-Crude-Oil-By-Christmas-An-Interview-With-Mike-Rothman.html

so assuming it's right what the best stock play today?

But assuming he's right, then you'd want the most leverage possible. So Big Empty's UWTI. Or load up on out of the money options for that month.

[Big Empty]

yea there is the triple leveraged UWTI and there is USO but uso doesn't move the times the amount like UWTI. I invest 15k at 19.21. for me that's a lot. Ill tell you im having heart issues all day. I just have a feeling that oil will go up somewhere between 40-45 in the next 2 months. UWTI isn't meant to be a long term investment it decays.

[SpursforSix]

yea there is the triple leveraged UWTI and there is USO but uso doesn't move the times the amount like UWTI. I invest 15k at 19.21. for me that's a lot. Ill tell you im having heart issues all day. I just have a feeling that oil will go up somewhere between 40-45 in the next 2 months. UWTI isn't meant to be a long term investment it decays.

Have you thought about using futures instead? You can buy WTI futures with around $4500 margin per contract.

[Big Empty]

Have you thought about using futures instead? You can buy WTI futures with around $4500 margin per contract. Im licensed but I don't have any experience with futures. just your basic stock and options but I don't feel like trading options. I've been playing around with UWTI with small money since the new year and figured I can get my truck paid off by summer going big ha ha

[SpursforSix]

Im licensed but I don't have any experience with futures. just your basic stock and options but I don't feel like trading options. I've been playing around with UWTI with small money since the new year and figured I can get my truck paid off by summer going big ha ha

damn....well good luck to you

[Nbadan]

....no doubt....$50 is the new high-end....that is the pricing point where only major players in the fracking industry remain competitive and the pricing point where non-frackers have no incentive to increase above....

[CosmicCowboy]

yea there is the triple leveraged UWTI and there is USO but uso doesn't move the times the amount like UWTI. I invest 15k at 19.21. for me that's a lot. Ill tell you im having heart issues all day. I just have a feeling that oil will go up somewhere between 40-45 in the next 2 months. UWTI isn't meant to be a long term investment it decays.

Are you planning to hold for weeks or just day trading it?

I read up on it a little. I'm a little unclear on the decaying part. I understand they have to reset their positions monthly but why and how does your return decay if oil moves up?

[Big Empty]

Are you planning to hold for weeks or just day trading it?

I read up on it a little. I'm a little unclear on the decaying part. I understand they have to reset their positions monthly but why and how does your return decay if oil moves up?the decaying is very hard to explain. There is alot of math involved. This stock can move in any direction 10-30% in one day. U can google "uwti decay" and there are some explanations out there. It wont decay by a great deal but it does slowly. If ur bearish DWTI is the flip side to trade. Ive read people holding them no more than a few days to a month or two. If u trade them ull see how much they can move in a few minutes sometimes. I was down 2200 and up 1500 within one hour the other day. Oil is up a 1.33 pre market. I may sell it today & make some cash. Its so hard to sit on it with ur up over a G.

[boutons_deux]

This Could Explain One Of The Biggest Mysteries Of Cheap Oil

Here’s a simpler hypothesis (http://desmog.ca/2016/03/01/saudi-arabia-simply-sees-carbon-bubble-what-it): Maybe the Saudis aren’t cutting production in the face of low prices because huge portions of their oil reserves might eventually become worthless. That’s what James Rowe, an environmental studies professor at the University of Victoria, thinks (http://desmog.ca/2016/03/01/saudi-arabia-simply-sees-carbon-bubble-what-it).

If that happens, today’s oil prices won’t look low — not when there’s an overabundance of an asset that can’t be sold. But oil prices are the lowest they’ve been in 12 years, you say. How could they ever be considered high?

This explanation relies on two related ideas: a carbon bubble and stranded assets.

The carbon bubble refers to the fact that energy companies around the world are sitting on five times (http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Unburnable-Carbon-Full-rev2-1.pdf) more fossil fuels than can be burned, the research nonprofit Carbon Tracker estimates.

Those assets, worth about $2 trillion, are referred to as “stranded assets.”
So what does that mean for an oil company that controls a state? It might as well sell as much oil as possible while still can.

Saudis can’t sell oil for $100 a barrel, obviously, but Rowe said they “appear to be positioning themselves for the next best option: gobbling up as much of the earth’s remaining carbon budget for themselves before the bubble bursts. Isn’t it better to sell at a lower price than to receive nothing at all from vast unburnable reserves?”

By the time the world has moved on from oil, Rowe said, Saudi Arabia “will have sold what it could while its reserves were still burnable.”

And the country will have moved on as well. Its oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, has said Saudi Arabia will be a solar exporter (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/saudi-arabia-oil-minister-sees-day-when-nation-exports-gigawatts) by the middle of this century.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saudi-arabia-cheap-oil-prices_us_56d868f4e4b0000de4039231

How's them apples for all you astute stock market players?

The Repugs, and all other corrupt conservatives planet-wide, defending their paymasters against renewables are propping up a dying horse.