April 19, 2008

Uh, not sure if you noticed, but oil just hit $117. Thank you George Bush. Thank you Dick Cheney. Thank you Ben Bernanke. Thank you gas guzzlers.


$117.

Wow.

OilPANIC?

At one point soon, some folks (think Wal-Mart worker) are gonna have to decide whether they're better off driving to work, or just not working. And those far-flung homes in places like Maricopa Arizona? Getting more and more worthless by the day.


Some experts are crying "bubble" and saying the price is gonna collapse soon. Others are pointing to the millions in India and China lining up to get into cars, and the lack of an energy policy in the USA.

I'm not sure, but it does look like a bubble. But I think we all know now that bubbles can go on longer than anyone ever thought possible. I happily hardly ever get in a car, and consume or purchase very little, so it doesn't hit me much, but $117 oil means pretty much everything will be going up in price. $200 oil? That's another ballgame.

Experts divided on how high oil will go

As prices in New York reached a new high of more than $116 US per barrel Friday, finding common ground among observers proved difficult.

For oil price analyst Walter Zimmermann, a New Jersey-based vice-president with ICAP United, $125 US is the magic number at which technical and psychological forces will reach a "crescendo" and create a new market reality.

54 comments:

Anonymous said...

Read Brand New War, quite a book.

Anonymous said...

Woo hoo, can't wait to see all those SUVs scraped and off the road, friggin abomination of an automobile.

Anonymous said...

Just drove around LIBERAL New Hope, PA, and saw 3 things.... Obama Signs, Rainbow Flags, and SUVs.

That's right... SUVs. And I drive a honda, trying to save gas, money and the environment..

Have you libtards hear...

% of income donated to charity:

McCain: 25%
Obama: 6%

You people are an idiot cult.

Go ahead, vote Obama and find our USA in a Chavez type marxist revolution before you know it.

blogger said...

By the way, think of the rail infrastructure that could have been built in the US with the money we blew in Iraq

Anonymous said...

OilPANIC in oil-consuming countries, OilJOY in oil-producing countries! This does not mean I am supportive of the petrotrade orgy. It's a shame to know that the nearest usable bicycle lanes are some 1000 km away.

Anonymous said...

Keith Keith Keith, once again, you show your massive ignorance. Oil prices are controlled by OPEC and hedge fund traders. All of the major American oil companies combine to control 5% of the world's oil reserves. Saudi Aramco is 10 times bigger than Exxon. Even PeMex is 3 times larger than Exxon. Just comment on housing and stop embarassing yourself by straying into other areas

Anonymous said...

Here's a prediction: Oil's going to be $200-$300 a barrel by the middle of the next decade. Gas will approach $10 a gallon.

It's just a prediction but I think gas prices will keep going up, up, up. Driving millage is up since 2000 when gas was $1 a gallon. Now it's almost $4 a gallon in NY and drivers continue to drive the same. People just don't care.

During the depression the last thing people would get rid of was their car. They would spend money on two things, food and fuel. Maybe that's why they are excluded from the CPI.

Crude oil prices will go up significantly because production will start its decent from peak production, which we are seeing in the last half of this decade.

Once gas goes over $10 a gallon people may start making fundamental changes in the way they get around. Rail may even look like a good idea to people again.

Anonymous said...

.
Since when does the current administration or any other set the price per barrel?

.

Anonymous said...

Isn't that thru Opec and the Oil cartels ?

Lost Cause said...

No, Keith, every gallon of gasoline in the United States for the last five years could have been paid for by the Iraq war.

Lost Cause said...

Brand New War must be good. I can't find any record of any so named book.

Anonymous said...

Ok, so Rice guzzling countries are responsible for high Rice prices?

Perhaps they should conserve and buy Toyota Hybrid Rice or European min Rice.

Rice guzzling countries need to have a better Rice policy

DOPES!

Anonymous said...

Think of the ANYTHING that could have been done with the money blown in Iraq (and on the consequences of its effect on oil prices). If we had simply burned the money in a massive bonfire each July 4th, we'd still be saving money because the price of oil wouldn't reflect as much supply uncertainty.

Anonymous said...

$200/bbl here we come!

Anonymous said...

Keith you sound like Kunstler (the Long Emergency), but you are right. The whole highway system has been a huge mal-investment. Will we fix things? Of course not, we'll just dump more money into the same bankrupt system, until we're all screwed.

Anonymous said...

This country desperately needs a social Marxist revolution after enduring decades of Bush, Bush junior, and Greenspan.

The War on Terror and the War on Drugs will be ended and those in power and government who perpetrated horrendous acts against humanity will pay the price for their crimes.

Anonymous said...

The rail infrastructure is half our problem, Keith. We tore all that up by the end of the 1960s to support the trucking and airline industries. And now, we're paying a huge price. As long as the price remains above $80.00, aviation and trucking will be on the decline. They shouldn't have got this big in the first place.

MrCoffee

Chris said...

A couple days ago, I watched a Tech Ticker video off the Yahoo Finance home page where they discussed oil with a senior analyst named Charles Maxwell from Weeden & Co. The analyst was old (somewhere in his 60's or possibly 70's) so I perked right up, figuring this guy might actually have a clue.

He predicted that oil would be $150 by 2015 (might come sooner the way things are going) and $300 by 2020. The sharp rise from 2015 and 2020 is because he believes there will be no question by then that peak oil will have passed its peak. He then recommended buying several of the Canadian oil sands companies (Suncor, Encana, Canadian Natural Resources, and Nexen) as well as Lukoil (Russia) and Petrobras (Brazil), because these companies have already proven they have massive reserves which will last them beyond 2020.

Harleydog said...

Looks like a bubble but underneath.... Fictitious Saudi and Iranian reserves (never independently audited) + North Sea in decline + declining production at Cantarell in Mexico + declining production in Russia + no new "elephant" discoveries which would be 10yrs away anyway (a la North Sea) = Peak Oil.

Mainstream financial media will discuss any reason for crude's run except peak oil! Just like they discuss everything regarding the housing expcept the real issue, affordability.

Gas at $8/gallon, Crude at $200-250/bbl. Count on it.

Anonymous said...

Now would be a great time to bring back that 6000lb. SUV subsidy.

I'm all for an attack on Iran as well. :)

Anonymous said...

keith said...
By the way, think of the rail infrastructure that could have been built in the US with the money we blew in Iraq
===========================
It's going to take a lot more suffering before rail comes back, Keith, if it EVER does.

My father used to tell the story (he retired in 1972) about how his Baltimore plant would order supplies from the factory in N.Carolina on a Monday morning. If supplies came by rail, they would arrive sometime Thursday, or maybe Friday. If they came by semi, the driver would be parked in front of the plant on Tuesday morning, waiting for the first person to open the doors to check him in. And this was forty years ago!
The almighty Railroad Worker's Union has done to the railroad what every union (air, steel, longshoremen, teachers) has done to their individual industry, trashed it. Don't get me wrong, unions provided a much-needed service in their heyday, the days of the robber barons, but are now just bloated, fat, all powerful (when there's no competition,) pigs at the greed trough.

I have several cousins who work for the railroad (my uncle made sure all of his kids got in) and what they get paid, for what little they do, is an absolute joke.

Gas will have to hit $250 a barrel, before rail will even be a consideration. And remember, almost all trains run on diesel fuel, even the "electric" ones!

Anonymous said...

Moving to Maricopa, AZ adds 30 miles each day to your commute because you have to drive 15 miles in the middle of nowhere just to get to the fringes of the Phoenix metro area. Thats an extra 7500 miles a year. Those miles add up quick in extra gas, extra maintenance, higher insurance costs, and having to replace your high mileage vehicle sooner, not to mention the extra time added to your commute.

Roccman said...

Who's a thunk?

Newsflash kiddies...

We eat oil...

So as oil goes away ...so too does our food.

ENJOY THE DIEOFF!!!

Anonymous said...

This country desperately needs a social Marxist revolution

Good one, Vladimir. Now go back to your ivory tower and shut up.

Anonymous said...

Russian and Mexican production are falling. Canada will be the new king of oil.

Rail will never work because we're not packed into cities like the rats in Europe.

Anonymous said...

So if Obama becomes president he will do what to make oil prices come down? You kooks do know it's a worldwide commodity that is traded across the globe? There is nothing any politician in Washington, London, Moscow, Tokyo, or Paris can do about oil prices.

The government intervention has only made things worse. They banned American companies from drilling for oil off the coast of Florida. Now the Chinese and Cubans are drilling for the oil that we found. They're banning American companies from investing in the Canadian oil sands. Now the Arabs and Chinese are trying to move in and take over the 2 trillion barrels of heavy crude in North America.

It's not the oil men who are causing high prices. It's the environmentalists.

Anonymous said...

Lets keep it in perspective.

Most oil is controlled by foreign government. Most of whom are dictatorships. They also nationalize the oil and stop research for new oil. Drives prices up.

Case in point: Think its exxon mobile made a deal with Libya for new plants. What is the oil company's cut? Think its like 7
%...

Anonymous said...

i bought Stephen Leeb's book "the coming economic collapse: how to thrive when oil costs $200 a barrel" about two years ago, when oil was at $60. seemed pretty far fetched at the time, but now it's only one price shock/black swan event away.

Macaca

Anonymous said...

Report: Iran's president says oil at $115 a barrel is too low, calls for

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080419/iran_oil.html

Oh No!

We will be going after Iran sooner or later! Especially, thinking they have nuclear capability.

Anonymous said...

Demand WONT decrease. Remember two years ago when the press said gas at $3 would stop people from driving? Gas will go to $6, and sad to say the poor will get mangled. The upper middle class still rides in their SUV's without blinking an eye. I live in the state of CT in a wealthy area.

Unknown said...

Anon 4:36 pm, New Hope, PA voted 50-50 for Bush-Kerry in 2004....not exactly a "liberal" town.

And you forgot that John McCain's tax returns are done for politics only....hence the large charitable contributions. His wife files a seperate return and is the heir to a $200 million dollar fortune.

Anonymous said...

Hey anonymous conservatives like 4:36 PM:

Go on and vote republican. As a liberal, I am. You're already fucked beyond belief by conservative policies of the last 30 years, a few more and you'll be begging for mercy. If not, it'll be fun watching you suffer some more. And your kids, too. I'll enjoy watching them go nowhere but down under republicans.

Seriously, you already lost a lot. Maybe we can resurrect reagan and he can drive you further into the ground.

Anonymous said...

saw a tv comercial today where the oil and gas co.s were saying they have hundreds of years of elec and gas supplies as reserves..........guess the miniture hydrogen producering machine is almost completed whereby every household can manufacture their own fuels

Anonymous said...

sorry bout still using anon..../lazy, lazy lazy

Anonymous said...

Military planners are already factoring in $225 per barrel oil when designing the next weapons systems. And of course when the tap starts to run dry.. they'll be the ones taking all that is left.. after all they have the guns...

Anonymous said...

I see oil in a bubble. The media expounds the tragic and it invades our psychology. Yes oil is a finite resource and yes it is getting more difficult to recover, but what is being kept out of the limelight is the new discoveries (new evaluations) that have come about in the past few months, namely the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. The United States Geological Survey released an evaluation for the field and have concluded that there is approx 4 billion barrels recoverable that is "light sweet crude". Also there are plays in both Alabama and Louisianna that are starting to get looked at again. The idea of "Peak oil" makes good doomsday news, but I don't think anybody can fully explain the true idea, that is what the hypothesis is behind it(i.e. how the data set was obtained, how robust it is, how mathematically strigent, etc). I am starting to think that commodities brokers are using it to further there own ends. What I mean by this is, people who poo poo housing will use the negative real estate data( yes, houses are still too high) to segway into why we should purchase energy and metals. I am starting to think it could be self realizing prophesy. For a while I started to fall in line with the oil catastrophists, but the way these proponents use buzz phrases like realtors have in the past makes me skeptical of the whole thing.

I am just a geologist, so what do I know. Oil has never been easy to find, so the psychology on how to recover it is an important component to the equation. The oil companies know where to look, in fact they are looking in my neck of the woods and have been sucessful. but this being said, I am wondering why it keeps rising like an arrow just like houses in late 2005. I don't know, but I am seeing too much news that promotes the price to climb by 3 dollars a week! Is that rational? at this current rate oil will be 150 dollars a barrel in a few months, but nobody is cutting production, that is, because of TRUE declines, rather maybe they are creating slow downs to make another 5% profit. Again I am not an expert, just skeptical.

Geologic Confusion

Anonymous said...

The price of oil is up because the value of the US dollar down. The money supply (M3) is now growing at 20% annually thanks to all the bullshit bucks being thrown around by Benanke and Paulson. Banana republic time and the peasants will be pissed.

If you want to see a real bubble, one that's going to rock your world when it blows, watch as the 65-year run of the Greenback comes to an ugly end.

Anonymous said...

i bought Stephen Leeb's book "the coming economic collapse: how to thrive when oil costs $200 a barrel" about two years ago, when oil was at $60. seemed pretty far fetched at the time, but now it's only one price

---------------

i bought and read his book "the oil factor" back when oil was in the 40s (2004). I quickly bet big on small, growing, oil and natural gas producers in north america (wanted stability). doing quite well, thank you.

oil production is on the decline. we have decades left and we will eventually make the transition to an economy that still uses oil but at a markedly lower level. People predict nightmare scenarios. while possible i think they are unlikely. Mankind has made adjustments like this before (the transition from burning wood to coal comes to mind). we will transition to electricity and non-fossil fuel methods of generation (nuke, wind, sun, wave, etc) along with using much less energy than we do today. i think commuting one hour, in one direction, to get to work will become a thing of the past. we will look back on it and laugh and laugh and laugh. heck, i have always laughed at people who drive more than 20min one way to work.

Anonymous said...

Demand WONT decrease. Remember two years ago when the press said gas at $3 would stop people from driving? Gas will go to $6, and sad to say the poor will get mangled. The upper middle class still rides in their SUV's without blinking an eye. I live in the state of CT in a wealthy area.

-------------------------------

demand will decrease, it already is. Here in oregon we have reduced our per capita gas consumption by 10% over the last 4 years. Problem is, the population in this area has increase by a similar amount so the net is that consumption has stayed flat.

Anonymous said...

"Have you libtards hear...

% of income donated to charity:

McCain: 25%
Obama: 6%

You people are an idiot cult."

Actually you are the idiot. McAholes wife's income wasn't reported. The reality is they more likely gave less than 2% of their combined income vs 6% for the Obamas.

Anonymous said...

Roccman has a very good point. Oil is used for mechanized farming and pesticides. IMHO however, the bigger point of interest, and an area for potential large profits, is natural gas. NG is the feedstock for ammonia, ammonia is used to make fertilizer. Without fertilizer, our strip mined soil won't produce squat.

60 or 70 years out, when our local supplies are depleted, we'll be needing middle east imports -- liquified NG. Imagine the cost of food then.

Of course, it may be that we use up the N. American more rapidly -- natural gas is used in massive quantities to process Canadian Tar Sands and most new electrical generation is NG powered. Throw in corn to ethanol and increased fertilizer needs, and NG has a lot of demand driven profit potential over the next 4 or 5 decades. Of course, ten decades out, worldwide starvation on a scale that returns population proportions to what the land can actually support will have probably have a negative impact on demand and prices.

I'm 40 though so I'm not divesting. Anyway, at this point, zero population growth isn't even enough. At least I consciously chose not join the ranks of all the breeders that make up the human population. My contribution should give all your grandkids an extra half second to experience the pleasure of not starving to death (when divided among your multitudes). The children of the kids of today are in for a rough ride.

Anonymous said...

FRANK INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO REMOVE FEDERAL PENALTIES ON PERSONAL MARIJUANA USE

Freedom (To Be Free) Up For A Vote:

Congressman Frank released the following statement explaining the legislation.

“I think it is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something which in fact society does not seriously wish to prosecute. In my view, having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes. In fact, this type of prosecution often meets with public disapproval.

story:

http://tinyurl.com/6jugm3

or

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Congressman_introduces_bill_to_decriminalize_personal_0417.html

Anonymous said...

Uh, not sure if you noticed, but oil just hit $117. Thank you George Bush. Thank you Dick Cheney. Thank you Ben Bernanke. Thank you gas guzzlers.

Seems like as soon as Congress was taken over by the Democrats oil prices started skyward. Coincidence? I think not.

Anonymous said...

"The United States Geological Survey released an evaluation for the field and have concluded that there is approx 4 billion barrels recoverable that is "light sweet crude".
Wow, 4 BILLION barrels. Incredible!!! At a useage of 20 million a day (US only) that will last for a full 200 days. You're right, nothing to worry about. That will last for generations to come.
DOPES!!!

Lost Cause said...

For the $2 trillion that the war cost:

Do the math.

This country spends about $1 billion a day on gasoline. I think a conservative estimate we could have paid for over a years worth of gas for the entire country, perhaps as much as five years worth, paid for outright.

Anonymous said...

Bought a Prius 3 years ago. Whatever. I love passing Hummers in the right lane trying to conserve their 40 gallon tank!!!!!! Ahhhhhhh ha ha ha ha ha

Anonymous said...

You mean oil mania.

Anonymous said...

To Yoski -- the Bakken field is really big and it will certainly help on our way down from peak. It should be noted that Bakken isn't a new find by an stretch of the imagination -- it was found in the 50s. What guzzling promoters of the concept that a peak will never come fail to realize though, is that the Bakken oil is hard to get and expensive to extract. Plus, it's wells tend to have a comparatively low flow rate for a large expense. While oil is at its present cost, they'll clearly be profitable, but Bakken ain't Ghawar. It is properly considered an unconventional source with wells averaging something like 150 bbl per day. The Spindletop gusher in TX started out at 100,000 bbl per day. Wells in Ghawar are reputed to do 3000 - 10,000 bbl per day. Bakken would require a huge number of rigs meaning it only makes sense if oil prices are really high. In other words, Bakken will not bring us cheap oil.

Tom said...

As oil prices go up, deep water drilling becomes profitable. More tarsands drilling becomes popular. Converting Shale and Coal into oil becomes profitable. Drilling in the Gulf off the coast of Florida and in Alaska becomes more favorable. Alternative energy investing becomes more speculative. Investment increases. Cellulosic ethanol is coming into play. Electric Cars and Nucelus Power Plants will be built. Wind and Solar. New technologies to convert heat into electricity (think of how hot a car engine gets and how much better Hybrids can get.)

Right now oil is a monopoly but once it gets some competition because of high prices, it will be like the goose that laid the golden egg. It's only a matter of time.

Anonymous said...

"Just drove around LIBERAL New Hope, PA, and saw 3 things.... Obama Signs, Rainbow Flags, and SUVs."

That is so true. I've seen that myself. Obama stickers on monster SUVs all over where I live too. I want to think these people are hypocritical. Unfortunately I think they're too stupid to even realize the contradiction of their actions.

Anonymous said...

I think gas will go to $7 - 8 per gallon in the next couple of years, then it will drop rapidly down to about $.75 - 1.00 like it was before. Of course, when this housing mess is done a lot of people will be crushed financially so even $.75/gallon gas may be high.

I think that saying in the depression goes: "Steak dinner was a dime, but no one had a dime to spare."

Better be getting that Geo Metro tuned up....

Anonymous said...

The price of oil is high because the dollar is falling.

Anonymous said...

hehehe.... my car makes 40 miles/gallon. and it reaches over 120 mph. Learn with european automakers. We have 4 cyl. engines that put on more power and use less gas than most american v6´s and v8´s.

PJ

Anonymous said...

IMHO, Wall Street hedge funds and bankers are pulling an Enron.

Do you recall the prices of utilities skyrocketing in California a couple years back. That was Enron cooking the books and screwing around with the energy markets.

Due to the national scope of this latest fiasco, the amount of collusion on Wall Street has to be astounding.

The goverments unwillinginess to layoff purchaing oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is all you need to know about how closely the Govt and Wall Street are tied to one another.

When do the national strikes begin?