Posted on 08/03/2004 3:04:47 PM PDT by Truth666
U.S. oil prices have set another record on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reaching $44.24 a barrel, the highest since NYMEX launched its crude contract in 1983. (...)
Following are some of the factors behind oil's price surge.
--RISING DEMAND ... -- LACK OF SPARE SUPPLY CAPACITY ... --REFINERY BOTTLENECKS ...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.co.uk ...
Tell me again why we can't drill in Alaska...
kerry doesn't want to disturb the caribou.
We can thank the democrats for these high prices. They would like to see America fall. Bush/Cheney 2004
Now that's just silly.. you really think the Alaskan reserve will have any bearing on world prices at all? The most I've seen coming from there is estimates in the 1.5 billion range.. nothing to thumb your nose at.. but that's about three years of supply most at what the world is burning at.
Go back over the last year and see how the value of the U.S. dollar has fluctuated against other world currencies. You'll find -- and it's not a coincidence -- that the price of oil has been at its highest when the dollar has been at its weakest.
It's not issues of supply, demand, scarcity, etc. that are driving this -- it's a long-term decline in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. If the dollar loses 20% of its value against the Euro and the price of oil goes up 20%, then oil isn't any more scarce than it was yesterday. In fact, in this case the price of oil really doesn't change at all.
I wonder when this will translate into higher pump prices... pump prices saw a spike back in May and June, then leveled off and even fell in July, even as oil continues its climb.
Regular is $2.15 in Los Angeles. Last month, it was $2.33.
And what can we do about that?
China
Drill all you want. It won't make a bit of difference. This is Peak Oil theory in action.
That's historically not the case. The dollar was never much stronger than in 1999-2000 (you'll recall that the Fishwrapper, my name for the Euro, got as low as 82 cents in 2000), but crude prices went straight up during this period, even when Bent Willy tried to game the mkt (the more fool, he) by releasing crude from the SPR to help Gork's campaign. Be happy to get you comparative prices by date for those years, any time you like -- just have to pull them out of my trading databases
The dollar is up 3%, oil is up 10%. Same time, same place. This is in the past two weeks.
you know why we cant drill in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Reserve) is because of animal rights and special interest liberals influencing the senate vote, the US geological whatever it is called says there is up to 30 year supply of oil, hopefully by then we won't need that much oil but you have to understand the portion of oil we use say for cars is not crude oil so a little goes farther than what you might already think.
The common estimate, not too liberal, not too conservative, is 6 billion barrels. About 1/4 of Prudhoe, about 1% of Saudi.
Regardless of how high crude oil prices are and why -- until November, the oil companies ought to be practically giving their gasoline away in order to support the President. This would do a lot more for us than their campaign and PAC contributions.
Correct - then add the cost of securing the movement of oil around the globe plus the cost of securing refineries and now we have a better picture of the "cost of oil". I suspect security / terrorism is adding $10 to the cost of a barrel of oil.
Quick calculation - $44 per barrel - $10 security cost = $34 per barrel * 0.8 for currency devaluation = $27 per barrel.
I believe $27 per barrel in within the target ranges I have read.
Bush has $44.
Democrats want Americans to ride bikes and shiver in a man-made artificially cooled planet.
Foreign investors are shying away from the U.S. dollar because they know what's coming. A country that is delusional enough to believe it can have Farm Bills, Medicare Prescription Drugs, and Nation-Building in Iraq without reducing its standard of living isn't going to have a strong currency for very long.
Look at the factors listed in this article. None of them suddenly became a reality in the last two weeks, either.
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