In My Opinion: One law is causing prices to go through the roof

[ftwspursfan]

http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/651928.html

"There’s a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy." — National Gas Week, Sept. 5, 2005 as reprinted in the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report, "The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices," June 27, 2006

The rest of the story will cause your blood to boil...:rant

[ftwspursfan]

Will it do any good to write our congressmen and senators? Do they care?

[Issachar]

Have any of the folks suggesting Congress do something about high oil prices stated what it is they think that Congress should do? I've been away most of the day and don't know. What I do know though is that the oil business is just that; business. Do we want the government meddling in business more than they do already? I do know that pure socialism does not work and pure capitalism does not work. In theory? Yes. But it won't because of the sin nature that men are born with. So, because of greed .... selfishness basically, there needs to be regulation of business just as there needs to be regulation of governmental power; checks and balances. But how much regulation? That is always a sticky issue.

Issachar

[dramama]

speculators aren't the sole cause of this but govt will use it to their advantage once again.....and lets pretend the govt slams the door on speculators in the US, what about all of the speculators in all of the other countries of the world? Oh yeah, if it were only the result of speculators it must only be the capitalist pigs in the US.....:rolleyes what about the fact that the dollar is sliding into the abyss of worthlesness?? What about OPEC? What about the state of the world and the crisis's and wars and attacks on pipelines and ships, refineries and fields??? What about Iran holding tankers to squeeze the supply and slowing production? What about China and India? What about our coca munching friend in venezuela?? What about the fact that we haven't built a refinery in 30 years yet we keep increasing our population?? Or let me guess, it's also the evil terrible oil companies (and guess what everyone with a 401K or IRA profits from the oil companies as well because they are shareholders)......these people need to figure out how the oil business, markets, futures and the rest of the "global" economy they wanted all fit together and work.....they are just trying to enrage people to get their mits into yet another thing they want to mess up worse....

[Issachar]

What about our coca munching friend in venezuela?? Ok! You are now OFFICIALLY on my list of posters to NOT read when I've just taken a bite of food! :)

Issachar

[ftwspursfan]

Don't think that Ed Wallace is anti-business, he is very pro-business. He mainly writes about the auto industry and wants the govt to back off extremism in regards to fuel economy standards. He does a great talk show here in Dallas called Wheels. He is not afraid to speak his mind and he does very diligent research! If we have Enron-type price manipulation happening while oil storage is at an all-time high, then something is not right!

[ftwspursfan]

speculators aren't the sole cause of this but govt will use it to their advantage once again.....and lets pretend the govt slams the door on speculators in the US, what about all of the speculators in all of the other countries of the world? Oh yeah, if it were only the result of speculators it must only be the capitalist pigs in the US.....:rolleyes what about the fact that the dollar is sliding into the abyss of worthlesness?? What about OPEC? What about the state of the world and the crisis's and wars and attacks on pipelines and ships, refineries and fields??? What about Iran holding tankers to squeeze the supply and slowing production? What about China and India? What about our coca munching friend in venezuela?? What about the fact that we haven't built a refinery in 30 years yet we keep increasing our population?? Or let me guess, it's also the evil terrible oil companies (and guess what everyone with a 401K or IRA profits from the oil companies as well because they are shareholders)......these people need to figure out how the oil business, markets, futures and the rest of the "global" economy they wanted all fit together and work.....they are just trying to enrage people to get their mits into yet another thing they want to mess up worse....

What is keeping Valero, Exxon or Chevron from building refineries? I'm not reading that the environmentalists are keeping that from happening. I know about some companies wanting to build on site refineries to get shale oil in CO & WY. Where is the oil company investment in the US?

[dramama]

Ok! You are now OFFICIALLY on my list of posters to NOT read when I've just taken a bite of food! :)

Issachar

sorry! :heh

[dramama]

What is keeping Valero, Exxon or Chevron from building refineries? I'm not reading that the environmentalists are keeping that from happening. I know about some companies wanting to build on site refineries to get shale oil in CO & WY. Where is the oil company investment in the US?

It's environmentalists and the not in my backyard mentality of all of the municipalities and counties these issues have come before time and time again.....

is it the oil companies that don't want to build them or other private entities? They would love to build refineries believe me.....and everyone has agenda...the greenies won't allow a lot of things to be built or developed because of the spotted owl (where I live) lizards, frogs, insects you name it. The Bakken oil field is just now beginning to be developed because Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Canada allow it.
We can't drill off any of our coasts because of environmental issues and no coast state allows it, can't drill on the frozen tundra or ice sheets of ANWAR because of the tender fragile tundra grasses and now the polar bears and probably the caribou as well.

American's have been screaming for the govt to drill for our own energy but they shoot it down for one reason or another each and every time? Why?? hmmm. It's not the oil companies fault believe me....they spend billions of dollars drilling in other peoples countries and deep in the ocean because we won't let them drill here. Russia seems to see the benefits of drilling for their own oil...brazil is drilling off of the coasts of the florida keys and made a huge find....since everyone's decided the oil companies are greedy and evil we have cut our own throats. Maybe we'll do it next with the evil pharmaceutical companies (oh yeah, they are only evil until you need one of their medications that cost billions of dollars to develop to save one of your own loved ones.....) that's how it works now.

And guess what? there will be no alternative energy any time soon because we can't do it. We can't make battery technology good enough, ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces and farmers are tilling under thousands of acres that we need to produce food for ethanol. It would take more land than we have in the US to produce enough ethanol to run our economy....maybe we and the rest of the world should starve, that'd make 'em happy.

Even if there was some magic potion to replace oil it would take years to impliment (no infrastructure in place)....electric cars? even if they could make a decent usable battery, where's all the magic electricity going to come from? How much will that cost once people start tooling around and using electricity up the ying yang? We will have air like china if you start doing that and our electrical infrastructure is in dire straits as it is...many places have rolling blackouts and brown outs because people use their air conditioners (maybe that should be outlawed as well and we can drop like flies like they did in france and briton due to the heat) now add cars etc to that.....the only answer until we can find a replacement to oil is to drill our own and tell our enemies to stick it. But I don't think we have that long, and perhaps oil is part of the end times diorama.....JMHO mixed with facts :hat

okay, rant over....:hehee

[ftwspursfan]

:agree, dramama, but what about this in Ed's article?

Get ready for the next shock to your system. In the past month we have added 11.9 million barrels of oil into our stock reserves, giving us 32.3 million more barrels of oil than we had on hand January 1. On May 5, we found out that for the second time in as many years, Iran was storing its excess crude oil on tankers in the Persian Gulf, because it had run out of storage space in the desert and was awaiting buyers for its heavy crude. That same day Saudi Arabia cut the discount price for its Arabian Heavy crude to $7.45, hoping to entice more buyers for immediate delivery. We didn’t hear that news, either.

While researching my third article for BusinessWeek online about the world’s oil situation in 2008, I asked for the most current report from Oil Movements. Because the oil industry is not transparent, Oil Movements tracks every tanker at sea, from both OPEC and non-OPEC oil countries, along with their cargoes’ final destinations. Anne O’Shea responded immediately to my request with their report dated May 8, 2008. Just so you will know, oil shipments are up from a year ago in almost every class, including Middle East oil in transit and Non-OPEC in Transit. The only class of oil shipment that has declined is covered on page 3 of that report. That chart is labeled, "4-Week Changes in Westbound Oil at Sea."

That’s right, shipments of oil headed west have shown serious declines during the month of April, down 800,000 barrels per day in the week before the publication of the report. Now, let me give you the first line from under the Westbound Oil shipments chart: "In the west, a big share of any [oil] stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight."

Could this be true? Oil Movements, the unimpeachable source for finding the real world situation on oil transits, is saying that oil is being hidden offshore, not declared in inventories? Yes, that is exactly what they are saying.

That same week our refineries cut their production runs back to 85 percent, down from 89 percent a year ago, to trim more gasoline out of our stock reserves, to increase their profits per gallon.