Thread: Oil Slick Stuff

Originally Posted by tsptalk

LOL - that's funny Nnuut!

So is this, but the market is giving me GAS!!!!

A lot of folks can't understand how we came

to have an oil shortage here in our country
~~~
Well, there's a very simple answer.
~~~
Nobody bothered to check the oil.
~~~
We just didn't know we were getting low
~~~
The reason for that is purely geographical.
~~~
OUR OIL is located in
~~~
Alaska
~~~
California
~~~
Coastal Florida
~~~
Coastal Louisiana
~~~
Kansas
~~~
Oklahoma
~~~
Pennsylvania
and
Texas
~~~
Our
DIPSTICKS
are located in
Washington, DC !!!!


Any Questions?

Gas price record reaches $4 a gallon

AAA's daily survey tops the milestone for the first time after a 1.7-cent rise Sunday.

By Mark M. Meinero and Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writers
Last Updated: June 8, 2008: 9:33 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gasoline rose to a milestone mark Sunday as the national average compiled by motorist group AAA reached $4 a gallon for the first time.

The national average for regular unleaded rose 1.7 cents to $4.005, according the daily measure on the group's Web site. That surpassed the previous record of $3.989 set Thursday.
The milestone was expected after a surge in crude oil prices added more than $16 to a barrel of oil over the last 2 trading days. Crude settled at a record $138.54 a barrel Friday, up by $10.75, after setting an all-time intraday high of $139.12.
The $10.75 gain was the biggest one-day advance in dollar value ever, nearly doubling the previous mark of $5.49 set Thursday. Weakness in the dollar, geopolitical concerns and an analyst's prediction of $150-a-barrel oil by July 4 helped spur Friday's advance.
In a statement Friday, AAA urged gasoline station owners not to overreact to the single-day oil spike.[more]
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/08/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Welcome to $5.00/gal regular...

Don't you think he understood exactly what he was saying and what it would do to the Markets?

Goldman Blames ECB Remarks For Oil Price Jump, Sees No Fundamentals

June 08, 2008: 01:47 PM EST


ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -(Dow Jones)- Goldman Sachs Managing Director and Chief Economist Jim O'Neill said Sunday that oil's sharp rise Friday "relied on the shock of the comments of the European Central Bank the day before and the renewed weakness of the U.S. dollar."
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet hinted Thursday at a possible interest rate increase at a future meeting of the bank. Trichet admitted a future increase was "possible" and conceded that some members of its governing council favored the move.
As a result of Trichet's comments, the dollar came under pressure after "a period when many people thought that maybe oil prices were stabilizing", O'Neill told Dow Jones Newswires at the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
He added that the underlining reason for the high oil prices is a shortage of supply and strong demand from emerging economies.
However, he said that the recent sharp rise in oil prices can't be explained by fundamentals.
O'Neill said that Friday's oil price rise was a reaction to the comments and " a bit of overreaction." Oil futures were up more than $10 to $138.54 a barrel Friday at the Nymex.
-By Alexander Kolyandr, Dow Jones Newswires.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...4_FORTUNE5.htm

Industrial nations vow to fight high oil

Energy ministers from 11 countries say they'll increase efficiency and invest in new technologies.

June 8, 2008: 6:44 AM EDT




AOMORI, Japan (AP) -- The world's top industrialized nations and leading oil consumers pledged Sunday to fight skyrocketing energy prices by increasing efficiency and accelerating investment in new technologies, while urging producers to expand production.
Energy ministers from the Group of Eight countries, joined by China, India and South Korea, voiced concerns over record oil prices and said both producers and consumers would benefit from greater market stability.
Ministers, meeting in the northern Japanese city of Aomori, focused Sunday on how they could diversify their energy sources to both control rising demand for oil and rein in emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
"We simply must increase the level and breadth of investment all around the world," said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. "That means promoting aggressive investment in renewable energy and other alternative energies technologies, as well as the development of tradition hydrocarbon resources."
The 11 nations, which account for 65% of the world's energy consumption, grappled with oil prices that have hit record highs. Prices made a massive 8 percent gain Friday to $138.54 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.[more]
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/08/news...ion=2008060806

Dollar down, might edge Oil and Gas higher?

Dollar down vs. euro

Oil prices and economy continue to hinder U.S. currency.

June 9, 2008: 4:47 AM EDT

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- The euro rose Monday against the U.S. dollar, which continued to be brought down by record-high oil prices and bad economic news from Washington.

The 15-nation euro rose to $1.5825 in morning European trading, from $1.5768 in late New York trading Friday.
On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported the unemployment rate rose to 5.5% in May from 5% in April in the biggest monthly jump since February 1986.
Meanwhile, crude futures made their biggest single-day leap ever the same day, soaring nearly $11 to $138.54 a barrel.
In after-hours trading Friday oil hit $139.12 - a trading record, though it was down slightly Monday to $137.65 a barrel.
In other currencies, the British pound fell slightly to $1.9709, from $1.9713 late Friday, while the dollar bought ¥105.13, up from ¥105.10 in New York.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/09/mark...ion=2008060904

Hope we don't have to wait TOO long?

Why oil prices will tank

Arguments that $4-a-gallon gas (or even higher) is here to stay are dead wrong. Housing's boom-and-bust cycle tells you why.

By Shawn Tully, editor at large

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- High-flying tech stocks crashed. The roaring housing market crumbled. And oil, rest assured, will follow the same path down.
Not everyone agrees. In an echo of our most recent market frenzies, some experts pronounce that the "world has changed," and that the demand spikes, supply disruptions, and government bungling we face now will saddle us with a future of $4, $5 or even $10 a gallon gasoline.
But if you stick to basic economics, it's clear that the only question is when - not if - prices will succumb.
The oil bulls are correct in their explanations of why prices have jumped, to a record $138.54 a barrel on Friday. It's indisputable that worldwide demand has surged, chiefly driven by strong growth in China, India and the Middle East. It's also true that most of the world's reserves are controlled by governments in places like Russia and Venezuela that mismanage production, thus curtailing supply growth.
But rather than forming a permanent new plateau for prices - as the bulls contend - those forces are causing a classically unstable market that's destined for a steep fall.
What do you think: Is $4-a-gallon case here to stay?
In a normal oil market, the cost of producing the last, most expensive barrel of oil needed to satisfy worldwide demand sets the price for every barrel the world over. Other auction commodity markets work much the same way.
So even if Saudi Arabia produces at $4 a barrel, if the final, multi-millionth barrel required to heat houses and run cars costs $50, and is produced, for argument's sake, at a flagging field in West Texas, the world price is $50. That's what economists call the equilibrium price: It's where the price that customers are willing to pay meets the production cost, including a cushion, naturally, for profit or "the cost of capital."
But today, the sudden surge in demand and the production bottlenecks have thrown the market radically out of balance.
Almost exactly the same thing happened in the housing market. And both housing and oil supply react to a surge in demand with a long lag. In housing, the lag is caused by restrictive zoning and development laws, especially in coastal markets like California and Florida.
So when the economy roared back in 2002 and 2003, builders couldn't turn out homes fast enough for buyers armed with those cheap mortgages. As a result, prices spiked. They no longer bore any relation to the actual cost of buying and improving land, or constructing and marketing a new house (at some reasonable profit margin). Instead, frenzied buyers were setting the price.
Because builders were reaping huge windfall profits, they rushed to buy and develop land. And sure enough, those new houses were ready just as buyers were retreating to the sidelines because they could no longer afford to buy a home. That vast overhang of unsold homes is what's driving down prices today.
The story is much the same with oil, with a twist. A big swath of the market isn't really paying that $125 a barrel number you hear about seemingly every hour. In China, India and the Middle East, governments are heavily subsidizing oil for their consumers and corporations, leading to rampant over-consumption - and driving up prices even more.
But sooner or later the world won't keep paying those prices: Eventually, the price must fall back to the cost of that last barrel to clear the market.
So what does that barrel cost today? According to Stephen Brown, an economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, that final barrel costs just $50 to produce. And when the price is $125, the incentive to pour out more oil, like homebuilders' incentive to build more two years ago, is irresistible.
It takes a while to develop new supplies of oil, but the signs of a surge are already in place. Shale oil costing around $70 a barrel is now being produced in the Dakotas. Tar sands are attracting investment in Canada, also at around $70. New technology could soon minimize the pollution caused by producing oil from our super-plentiful supplies of coal.
"History suggests that when there's this much money to be made, new supplies do get developed," says Brown.
That's just the supply side of the equation. Demand should start to decline as well, albeit gradually.
"Historically, the oil market has under-anticipated the amount of conservation brought on by high prices," says Brown. Sales of big cars are collapsing; Americans are cutting down on driving. The airlines are scaling back flights.
We've learned another important lesson from the housing market: The longer prices stay stratospheric, the worse the eventual crash - simply because the higher the prices and bigger the profit margins, the bigger the incentive to over-produce.
It's even possible that, a few years hence, we could see a sustained period of plentiful oil supplies and low prices, meaning $50 or below.
A similar scenario occurred following the price explosion in the 1970s and early 1980s. The price spike caused the world to cut back sharply on oil consumption. By the mid-80s, oil prices had fallen from almost $40 to around $15. They remained extremely low for two decades.
It's impossible to predict how the adjustment this time will take shape, just as it was in housing. There the surge in supply came in places the experts swore there was "no supply," and wouldn't be any. Builders found a way to extend vast tracts of homes into California's Inland Empire and Central Valley, and even build "in-fill" projects near the densely-populated coasts.
An earlier bubble is also instructive. In the early 1980s silver prices jumped from $10 to $50 on the theory that the world was facing a permanent shortage of silver. Suddenly ads appeared asking homeowners to bring their tea sets and jewelry to Holiday Inns for a big price. Silver supplies poured from seemingly nowhere, out of America's cupboards, of all places.
And so it will be with oil. We don't know where the new abundance will come from, from shale, or tar sands or coal or an OPEC desperate to regain market share. We just know that it will appear. With prices like these, it always does. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/news...ion=2008060610

President, Congress offer no immediate help on gas prices

• Bush has proposed increasing the supply; Dems propose reducing demand
  Some Dems oppose increasing production for environmental reasons
  They propose research into alternative fuels, funds for mass transit
• Those plans would be costly and would take a long time to implement
• More
• http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/...ess/index.html

Why do we need to give them Federal Park lands? Because the property owners on the coast don't want their site lines ruined? The oil companies ought to have to pay for access from whoever owns the land, not get an ANWAR Parkland Freebie from the Government.

Interesting!

Nnuut, this post defines the fuel issue as a politically oriented party-line issue. I believe that the U.S. can strike a balance without newspeople and vested interests having the upper hand in confusing the issues. I believe that american imagination, ingenuity, and resorcefuleness could have succeeded in creating new sources of alternative fuels, if only a serious effort had been made for the good of the nation, along time ago -- 1974 -- when the oil producing/exporting countries (OPEC) first threatened to choke our economy and the free world. This thing goes beyond political party lines. IMO this has become a National Security issue. Are we going to wait for the next century to start taking serious action and end the dependency on foreign governments? I hope not.