Posted on 06/04/2005 12:48:38 AM PDT by M. Espinola
NEW YORK- Think $55 a barrel oil is bad? Wait till a hurricane knocks out a U.S. pipeline and a port at the same time that militants are killing hostages in Saudi Arabia, sending oil prices over $150 a barrel.
That's the premise of "Oil Storm," a television docudrama set to premiere in the United States on Sunday. The movie uses exaggerated real life events and fictional characters to examine America's dependence on oil and the havoc a major disruption in supply could wreak on ordinary people.
The movie depicts -- albeit in the extreme -- what energy markets have spent much of the past year fretting about: hurricanes that can rip apart oil infrastructure and war and turbulence in the Middle East, which have driven crude prices to record highs.
And the writers aim to show why the intricacies of oil rigs and oil reserves should be as much a concern for average Americans, with their taste for gas guzzling SUVs and summer road trips, as they are for traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"Everything is so interconnected that anything that happens in Saudi Arabia or China will have an impact on oil, and therefore an impact on you or I in terms of what happens at the pump," said Caroline Levy, its British producer and co-writer.
Levy is well aware that the movie could be criticized for fanning fears of a doomsday scenario, similar to last year's Hollywood blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow", in which New York was flooded by a tidal wave before being frozen solid, in a series of events that defied the laws of physics.
Few specialists expect a chain of events to occur any time soon that would lead to oil at $150 a barrel, although investment bank Goldman Sachs did send shockwaves into the market in March when it warned oil prices could hit $105 a barrel under a "super-spike" scenario.
"None of what we're saying is so out of the realms of belief," said Levy, adding the movie is based on numerous interviews with energy experts and only a slight exaggeration of past events. "The purpose is to show how vulnerable the infrastructure of the oil industry in America is."
In the movie, which will be aired on Fox's FX network, a powerful hurricane reminiscent of last year's Ivan smashes into Port Fourchon, Louisiana, cutting off a majority of the nation's oil imports and crippling production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. administration turns to its ally and top world exporter Saudi Arabia, which boosts supplies but then is forced to deal with an unfolding crisis of its own, involving "Shoot first, ask questions later" security forces and hostages.
The movie depicts panic spreading across oil markets, sending oil prices above $150 a barrel, while cars across the United States line up outside gas stations, and everyone's lives are thrown into disarray.
"At the end of the movie, prices go back to pretty much what they were at the start of the year," said Levy. "But the film is basically saying 'What we can we learn from this?'"
all photos added
And all the people bidding on it are 19 year old gorgeous blond chicks in bikinis."
I have that same dream almost every night. Are all your chicks twins who are into sharing with their sisters?
GET OUT OF MY HEAD.
Six Feet Under?
Does that count? I thought it was a TV show not a movie.
I'm sure the movie touches on our compassion for the wildlife by leaving our own oil reserves in Alaska and offshore untapped while our economy goes to hell. I also wonder if the film will show a RFK, Jr. look alike flying around the country in a private jet to harangue people for wasting energy?
There now. I fixed it.
NO!!! NOT LOCUSTS!!!! Locusts could happen.
My Company Commander in bootcamp was CE1 Dunn. All 6'6" of him. Wish I knew in bootcamp whatr I knew know about all those ribbons on his chest.
During the 1970's we did not have Wahhabist madmen smashing jumbo passenger airliners into extremely tall office buildings.
Some three thousand innocent people will no longer be able to yawn.
All I was saying, if you'll chill just a moment, is that gas lines we can cope with :)
No gas lines. Make friends with a gas station owner :)
lol, Were not that bad off, yet :) In relation to your investment advise, maybe a bit more realistic would be reviewing heating oil call options for Jan, March, April of 2006, the next time the price drop another 10 to 15 cents or more.
The story line also makes it look like the government is doing nothing to stop the price of oil reaching two hundred dollars a barrel. Plus, every thing that can go wrong does. Hurricanes, tanker crashes, terrorism, you name it, it happens in this movie.
I would like to think that before oil hits that price, the government, our government, would do anything to relieve that pressure from the economy. Remember the 1970's movie 'Three Days of the Condor' where Robert Redford's character stumbles on a CIA plan to invade middle east countries if the price of gas rises too high? Something like that.
I was a teenager during the first energy crisis in 1973, and it was kind of wierd to see no one driving around because gas cost, what 40 cents a gallon. My uncle bought a Toyota because his Chrysler New Yorker got lousy gas mileage. Never mind the fact that a new car cost several thousand dollars at that time, the amount of gas use needed to offset the cost difference between a new car, no matter how fuel efficient at the time, and just prudently saving gas by alternating your driving habits was lost on my uncle.
No, this movie was nothing more than an attempt to scare people into not buying SUVs or sending tropps abroad to secure oil producing countries.
Nam Vet
I hadn't heard of this "docudrama"... my neighbor just called to tell me that the gas station they filmed at is literally one of two right around the corner from us! It's hilarious watching a place you know!
Just watched it. Hit piece on oil companies and Republicans. The most ridiculous item was the Russian oil that was on its way to the US and diverted because China outbid us. LOL! So we couldn't counter? No, the ships did a u-turn and headed to China. Anyway, the movie was a POS.
It did with the Arab oil embargo. Even with that it didn't kill the economy, and apparently the movie has it that the crisis will end after the burp. Pipelines can be repaired. Even an oil port can be rebuilt and the slack would be taken up by the rest of the infrastructure in the meantime. The price might spike, but not for long.
Not at all. There is probably a decade to go.
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