Posted on 02/25/2009 11:09:53 AM PST by SAJ
Did you ever wonder who might be the world’s biggest energy speculator? Now let me see, might it be T. Boone Pickens? Or perhaps it might be Prince Alaweed of Saudi Arabia. Maybe it is one of those big fund traders, you know, the ones that can allegedly control the price of oil on a whim. Well if that is what you think, you are wrong. ... (remainder of article at the link)
(Excerpt) Read more at sites3.barchart.com ...
Phil Flynn is one of the best-known commentators in the world on markets for crude oil and its products. Unlike the talking heads on CNBC and other assorted media ''experts'', he is a real, live tradet, too -- and a good one.
Oh yes. Phil wants me to include his disclaimer:
Past performance is not indicative of future results. The information and data in this report were obtained from sources considered reliable. Their accuracy or completeness is not guaranteed and the giving of the same is not to be deemed as an offer or solicitation on our part with respect to the sale or purchase of any securities or commodities. Alaron Trading Corp. its officers and directors may in the normal course of business have positions, which may or may not agree with the opinions expressed in this report. Any decision to purchase or sell as a result of the opinions expressed in this report will be the full responsibility of the person authorizing such transaction.
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Anyone still thinking that Osamabama isn't out to trash the US economy really needs to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
This is scary stuff. Obama and the democrats are going to ruin our economy and endanger all of our lives with this nonsense.
First he claims that Obama is the biggest speculator then he quickly contradicts himself by saying that Obama hasn't yet speculated, and even if he does there is not enough oil in the strategic reserve to affect prices.
Another scumbag shill for insider traders and speculators who create no wealth, force corporations who use commodities to become speculators themselves, and destroy the link between commodity prices and true supply/demand.
((( ping! )))
One hopes that this is just another example of 0bama talking the talk without walking the walk.
If not, then we are left to have deflation, the inevitable collapse of the USO energy etf (losing $400 million with each monthly rollover of futures contracts during contango), and others to keep the price of oil low...storage and deliveries high.
Phil Flynn is one of the best-known commentators in the world on markets for crude oil and its products. Unlike the talking heads on CNBC and other assorted media ''experts'', he is a real, live tradet, too -- and a good one.
Phil Flynn is a CNBC talking head, too. I've seen him on CNBC more than once.
Come to that, even ol' SAJ has been a talking head once or twice.
Where’ve you been, m’friend? The contango is going away as we speak. It’s been cut in half in the past 3 weeks.
Full disclosure: I'm one of those eeeeevil speculators, too. And we're not going away.
Please stop pissing in my wheaties. Pretty please.
There’s already some big ol’ mule muffins in there, courtesy of the DNC jackass...
;\
Seriously, as a retired engineer, this alternative/green energy codswallop really, REALLY gets me wound up. These hippies, greenies and others who keep touting this stuff in such large scale that it becomes a national policy have no flippin’ clue what they’re talking about, the details involved, or anything. As your buddy Phil is putting it - The One is taking on the job as the whale of whales in energy spec.
In short, this energy stuff just ain’t as easy as it looks. And since I am living in one of perhaps only three or four states in the nation where wind power could, conceivably, pencil out... (WY), and I’m watching these silly windmills go up at a rate of one or two a week in these wind farms... and then we see them seldom, if ever, brought online (because our wind either blows like a fury... or not at all...), these ideas in DC are just so much blather and BS.
So my question to you is this: Let’s assume that The One wants to kill coal - because he has said so. From your reading of the coal market, how low can coal go? Not “how low can coal go and be profitable” — I mean, on the futures markets, how low could coal be pushed from what you see in the markets?
Next question: How long can natural gas stay below, oh, $4/MMbtu from what you see in the market data?
Because both of those have a great deal to do with the state economy of WY, and I’m not feelin’ real good about the future economic prospects if coal *and* NG go downhill for extended periods. This has always been a boom/bust state, like all mining states, and the last five years were boom-boom times. Now I fear that in addition to a mere commodity/business cycle, we’re going to see the added machinations of DC really shaft us.
Neither are arrogant, uninformed jerkoffs.
If the Kenyan thinks that the citizenry will sit still quietly while he takes action that doubles or trebles retail electricity rates, he's smoking some serious weed.
BTW, while there is a coal futures mkt, it is very low volume and has not yet gained acceptance by the miners and utilities. Perhaps it will one day (maybe very soon, to counter the uncertainty caused by Chu, Browner, and the Zero). Your Q about natgas, though, can be answered reasonably well. Demand has nose-dived from last summer, and somehow it did not recover even over the well-colder-than-average winter. Not sure why that is.
Gas utilities are WAY behind the curve on pricing at retail. It took almost 3 years for the local company, Laclede Gas, to reset rates in line with $8-9-10 natgas. Doubtless it will take longer than that to lower them -- they must be cleaning up right this minute.
So, to answer your 2nd Q, figure than we must see a demand recovery, which implies that Americans will have to start to return to their former, non-thrifty ways regarding heating and cooling. Further, this change will have to occur principally in the Northeast and Atlantic Seaboard.
The NG strip is saying that we go to/over $6.00/MMBTU in 2010, and stay there. So my answer will be: we can't stay under $4.00 for more than 7 months, absolute tops, and that assumes no GOM hurricanes and a average to below-average CDD summer. Conceivablly, events pending, we could be above $4.50 for good by July...but that's rather a longshot.
Hope that answered your Q reasonably well. I don't know all the engineering business regarding solar/wind power, but I do know that proponents NEVER mention that one has to have a fossil-fuel backup system in place, for times when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.
And I wasn't pissing in anyone's Wheaties. Just reporting what I thought was a good article from a VERY knowledgeable player in the energy biz.
;^)
Well, here’s a little known factoid that is too often ignored by our team too:
Nuke plants must go offline if they lose power from off-site. The NRC requires them to have power available from the grid to run their emergency systems - sorta the flip side of the wind/solar thing, but it is there nonetheless.
re: coal conversion: About the only thing I could see they could convert to quickly/cheaply would be natgas. The efficiencies on the plant go up a bit — the highest efficiency fossil-fueled plants now are these new combined-cycle natgas plants — about 56 to 59% efficiency or thereabouts. The only way a coal plant becomes efficient overall is to locate it near the mine mouth (like the coal-fired plant at Delta, UT) and you mine the coal, wash it a bit and put it on a honkin’ conveyor belt, rather than use a truck or train to transport it. Even then, tho, the plant efficiency of coal can’t approach that of the natgas combined-cycle plants...
Oh, on WY coal:
The “cleaner” part of WY coal is low sulphur. There are coals that have higher heat content (ie, BTU/ton of coal) and so on, but the WY/Powder River Basin coal is very low in sulphur, and that is what the regulatory environment favors now. Heat-wise, WY coal is OK, nothing to write home about.
I didn't know that about nuke plants, thanks! Nuclear is, of course, the only true long-term solution to energy supply. Since 99+% of politicians can't see past the next election, it seems unlikely that the nation will embrace nukes as they should, though.
By the way, Rick Santelli was a real trader, and Wolfman, Rick's occasional sideman, still is.
I am, however, delighted that he spoke out so boldy (and so accurately)!.
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