Posted on 12/17/2014 10:05:19 AM PST by blam
Sam Ro
December 17, 2014
Oil prices are surging.
The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Tuesday rose to $58.98 from $54.20. Brent crude rose to $63.50 from about $58.70.
At this point, there seems to be no obvious explanation for the move.
On Tuesday, oil prices tumbled to five-year lows. WTI touched $53.60 and Brent sank to $59.86, both were the lowest levels since May 2009.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I don’t want the Cartel to raise prices and also I don’t want them to maintain production rates to drive the price of oil to the floor in the short-term, knowing the effect will be to drive their competition (us, with higher production prices) out of business, restoring their effective monopoly.
If you asked any business what is the most important thing to them it would be a reasonably predictable cost/regulation environment. This has happened before. The domestic price plummets, the domestic oil industry is devastated and boom, we’re back to 2012-13 prices (which in answer to your question, I was not happy about).
On a personal level, having seen what we’ve seen over the past 30 years, if you told me I could lock in $2.00/gallon gas and $2.25/gallon for my heating oil over the next 10 years with the added benefit of giving jobs to Americans, I’d take that deal in a New York minute...
Money is funny.
Hoping for a Cartel to manipulate prices in your desired favor is likely to be as successful as throwing pennies in the well.
I'm happy for them to not be able to coordinate together and have different goals. In the long run, the US oil industry will be better for it, if that continues.
Ups and downs in the oil industry is nothing new. It will survive, but every individual company will not. Those that took on too much debt, bet on too high a price for too long, will sell assets to those with better financial sense.
And $50~60 oil, isn't really a bust. The industry will keep growing at that price, just slower. And there will be few junk-bond, hedge-fund type game playing around with it.
So your argument is that tariffs are never a good thing.
Actually, I can support that position.
But my gut tells me that if there were ever a time, this is it. Because we’ve been talking for decades about becoming energy self-sufficient, and if we were to impose a tariff, and ramp up fracking, we could actually do it!
if you have the luxury of $741 billion in currency reserves then your pain threshold is a damn sight better than the competition.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2014/12/05/saudis-wont-relent-in-oil-market-tussle/3/
LOL.
I’m just feeling like a hog in slop after paying under $2/gal for a tank of gas!
I won't go that far, but selected tariffs I think are bad. All taxes have some negative impact to business, but still necessary.
I can support a tariff applied to the value of all goods, offset by reduction of other taxes. But don't have the government selecting individual winners and losers.
Does anyone believe that the price of oil will stay anywhere near the low that it has been lately?
Gordon Gekko: “She’s at night beside your bed watching you, with one eye open. Money is a bitch that never sleeps. She is jealous, and if you do not pay attention, you’ll wake up and she’s gone”.
if there were ever a time, this is it....
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’
- Ronald Reagan
It is never too late to postpone a bad government policy.
- thackney
“don’t have the government selecting individual winners and losers.”
Even if the winner is US and the loser is OPEC?
It’s up about about 3% today.
You honestly believe Federal Government works that well and that selectively?
US Refineries and PetroChem for starters.
Yep. Oil prices go down 45+ percent; and then goes up 9-10 in a day is hardly a spike. Just a minor correction or an attempt to manipulate the market to offset some of the huge losses for speculators.
The idea is to stop the Saudis from dumping their oil on our markets at below market prices so that they can help destroy existing and emerging domestic production.
Efficiencies in permitting would result in lowering the break even price of drilling and extracting but I am not sure it would be enough to ward off the Saudis who are intent on a price war.
Except that it is a shooting war. Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Kiev, Syria....they're all about domination of energy resources. The shooting is very real to those whose lives have been destroyed in those areas. When we're not doing the shooting, our proxies are doing it for US, Saudi, and global banking interests. And now the HOR and US Senate passed a bill which gives $350 million for the Kiev coup government to fight against Russia? A destabilized Russia that doesn't keep angry minorities in check is a real bad plan.
The unleashing of terror groups is a direct result of destabilization caused by this war-mongering.
Then there's the potential unintended consequences of this Saudi maneuver. Many emerging economies, including in Africa, were getting somewhere with oil profits. What's going to happen to them while Saudi rakes in profits from established oil wells? What's to stop the House of Saud from buying up oil resources that fail economically because of oil prices in freefall?
I don't see a path for this to end without it getting totally out of control.
OPEC’s whole reason for existence is to corner and manipulate the oil market. And as the world’s largest oil consumer, it’s US who’ve been cornered and manipulated. We have been complaining about it for as long as I can remember.
We have an opportunity, right now, to do something about it.
I say we should take that opportunity.
Better hurry before they raise their prices!................
Yes. And we are better off when they argue among themselves and cannot reach agreement for manipulation. That is happening now.
We have an opportunity, right now, to do something about it.
I say we should take that opportunity.
We always have the opportunity to do lasting damage to our own industries.
I say we should never take that opportunity.
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