Posted on 01/18/2014 10:12:50 AM PST by Praxeologue
One piece of the jigsaw puzzle is missing to complete the deflation landscape across the West: a slide in oil prices. This is becoming more likely each month. Turmoil across the Middle East and parts of Africa has choked supply over the past two years, keeping Brent crude near $110 a barrel despite a broader commodity slump. Cotton and corn prices have halved, as has the UBS index of industrial metals. Such anomalies rarely last. "We estimate that crude oil is now the mostly richly priced commodity in the world," says Deutsche Bank in a fresh report. Michael Lewis, the bank's commodity strategist, said markets face an "new oil supply glut" as three forces combine. US shale will add 1m barrels a day (b/d) to global supply for the third year running; Libya will crank up shipments after a near collapse in 2013; and Iran will come out of hibernation. "This will push OPEC spare capacity to levels last seen in the depths of the financial crisis in 2009," he said. America is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the top global producer of oil by 2016. It will account for more than half of non-OPEC world supply this year. The US Energy Department says US oil imports will drop to 5.5m b/d by next year, half the level a decade ago. This turns the world's 89m b/d market upside-down. Deutsche Bank said Saudi Arabia may have to slash its output by a quarter to 7.5m b/d this year to stop the bottom falling out of the market. The Saudis no longer have such money to spare. They are propping up an elephantine welfare nexus to keep a lid on explosive tensions in the Eastern Province, home to Saudi oil and its aggrieved Shia minority. A cut of this
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Bring on the glut....
Bad news for Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda. Finally.
With all the money we’ve printed, and all the debt we owe, deflation is the last thing the Fed will allow.
In the mid-long term, the new fracking craze will raise up a lot of previously inaccessible oil. If the Middle East malaise partly clears, that is a bonus.
I’m almost wondering if this is a silver lining of Obama’s inept foreign relations. The world knows it can’t count on America, so it begins seeking what it can for itself. And then God blesses it for doing so. Could our more foreign relations savvy Republicans actually have been making the world too dependent on America for its own good?
Gee, just think if our government were PROMOTING
oil production. We’d be in a hell of a fix...
Well, at least it would be a counterforce to its consequences. Like I’ve said, we need a gold mine in America to pay for all this funny money. Maybe fracking oil is it.
And imagine how much worse the economy would be without the fracking boom. < shudder>
They'll just increase spending proportionately. Bummer, huh?
The private sector seems to be doing a pretty fair job of it.
The high gas prices are partly because of overregulation choking the refinery biz. Only a handful of blessed, expensively fitted refineries furnish the juice pumped by gas stations nationwide, and so the sparse competition lets prices stay high. Let more refineries into the picture (to be sure, established ones will try to fight that) and we will be travelin’.
Well that is a temptation.
But who says we need to have idiots at the helm forever?
Don’t the Chinese have oil shale too?
No problem, the Feds will just double or triple taxes to compensate.
If they do, they probably won’t be shy about cooking it out even if it smogs the whole Chinese countryside.
More oil WILL eventually reduce the cost of gasoline which will give people more discretionary spending income which will raise net worth. Yes, I know it's a fungible product. However, eventually the net cost of gasoline will decrease.
Funny how the Time and Newsweek rags said we were running out of oil so many decades back much like other erroneous crap they predicted on another thread here on FR.
A gracious God is being rather annoying about knocking at our door with blessings, every single time the Chicken Littles think they have a bulletproof racket going.
Pax Americana should have lowered risk, increased production and kept oil prices down. Higher oil prices, however, will now increase unconventional U.S. production, improve the U.S. balance of payments and counteract the domestic negative effect of high energy costs. As you imply, this may be a win either way for the U.S.
Like I said, it would counter an inflationary trend, so he isn’t entirely in the dark. He just needs more picture in his equations. The world kited money. Then God stepped in and showed it more real wealth. Agh, what is Satan to do? Well Satan does have us despising ourselves in other ways. Abortion and the wastes of socialized medicine, ‘nuff said. But it’s only our own fault that this situation has to go on as badly as it is.
Just about everybody has oil and gas shale.
Massive reserves in S. America, Europe, Australia and China. Probably the largest volume is in Russia, not surprising since it is the largest country.
When US prices for gas drop low enough, those American who have acquired expertise will fan out across the glove and drill for the gas there.
All of which is a very good thing. The power and influence of the Arab oil states, and by extension that of Islamists, has flowed from their control of a scarce resource. When the resource is no longer scarce, their influence goes bye-bye.
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