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
HEY ! Quit stealing my dreams !
Nam Vet
What I expected was a full fledged movie. blaaaaaaa.
I know what you mean, Red China outbid US?
The only item which I for see down the road is major problems in Saudi Arabia possibly via Iran and Iran was not even touched upon.
Nam Vet
I wondered where they got that stuff. I also would be skeptical about truckers deliberately undermining the economy in a true crisis. Wouldn't happen IMHO.
The overall tone of this film was 'it's our fault'. We had that baloney under Carter, dive 55mph, slow down the entire economy, turn off the heat, the A/C, dump your real American full size car for a bathtub on four wheels made in Japan.
No mention either of mass developing of domestic oil at the end.
Or coal or nuclear.
The whole film was blatant leftist propaganda.
It seems that FX is Murdoch's leftist network.
It snowed in Somalia yesterday....first time in history.
Now that I can believe. The movie? Nah.
I got dibs on Sarah Michelle Gellar! ;^)
That's the weird thing ... nope... of course I don't go up that way every day... not sure when it was filmed. I'll need to ask my neighbor.. (they've hit the sack by now I'm sure..)
That station was a little family owned one for years - we started going to the "sac-n-pac" that opened across the street from them.. so I haven't been in the one in the film in years. The one in the film was sold to a larger company a few years back... Not sure what the situation was with the filming. I'll have to snoop around about the local scuttlebutt..
We have the movie on now .. yep - it's a joke isn't it? Looks like a big scare tactic.
Liberal "hocus-pocus" and dramatic lines throughout.
The first depicted 'energy Tsar' when his name was said quickly it sounded like 'Rodent' lol, then he get booted out. His replacement is a former, diehard communist official from Russia, now an American citizen, and is placed in charge of America's energy dilemma? Oy!
The only depiction they we moderately close on was the suicide jihadists self detonating in various portions of Saudi Arabia. We see that now in Iraq every other day.
Understanding how the commodity & the energy markets can rapidly develop into total panic in the trading pits, if the largest Saudi oil field, the Ghawar, was attacked, let's prognosticate with an on slot of Iranian missiles setting a major section of the massive Ghawar field & interconnecting pipelines ablaze, in conjunction, with a highly organized multi-location terrorist attacks breaking out all over Arabia, causing havoc with the 'Kingdom' via sabotage of other oil pipelines, storage facilities, ports and even loading supertankers.
That is exactly the kind of extremely deleterious set of shocking market ingredients to not only panic the traded energy complex but stock indexes would sink due to selling of selected firms, plus precious metals would rise based on incoming news, and depending on the particular currency, trending would be in both directions. If kind of new broke a few hours away from the closing bell on a Friday, the trader pandemonium would be far worse.
I watched it too; absolute crap. I could have thrown together a better plot in an hour. And it was so far removed from how the government (and the public) would truly act in such a situation that it was practically a comedy.
(I was especially amused when oil prices tripled yet pump prices jumped somewhere around 425%.)
BTW, how come none of the scenes depicted in the PR photos from the first post in this thread actually were in the movie?
Ah, so that's why it was so liberally biased and portrayed all its American characters so cartoonishly.
Very correct. Is this the same parent company 'Fox-FX, as in Fox News?
Have you looked at maps of Saudi Arabia showing the oil fields and wells?
Maybe if a little investigative digging is done Miss Caroline might just come up as being associated with the BBC, formerly or currently?
Too late:
That is a bloody good question since with the exception of the photo of NYMEX floor traders, all the photos were taken from the promo website for 'Oil Storm'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.