Posted on 04/21/2008 5:18:06 AM PDT by RWB Patriot
Oil prices spiked to a record $117.40 a barrel after a Japanese oil tanker was hit by a rocket near Yemen and militants in Nigeria claimed two attacks on pipelines. The 150,000-ton tanker Takayama was attacked about 270 miles off the east coast Yemen coast in the Gulf of Aden while it was heading for Saudi Arabia, its Japanese operator, Nippon Yusen K.K., said in a statement.
None of the ship's 23 crew members was injured. Hundreds of gallons of fuel leaked before a 1-inch hole in the tanker's stern was repaired, the company said.
Kyodo News agency reported that the Japanese tanker was fired on by a rocket launcher from a small boat.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery reached $117.40 a barrel but fell back to $116.88 by midday in Europe, up 19 cents from Friday's closing price.
In London, Brent crude futures for June rose 21 cents to $114.13 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
"There's clearly some geopolitical tension in the market," said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at the ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. "This will die down, but the market is pretty jittery at the moment."
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
Comments over the weekend by an OPEC official that the group isn’t likely to increase production also supported prices on Monday.
Abdullah el al-Badri, secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said Sunday that oil prices would likely go higher and that the group was ready to raise production if the price pressure was due to a shortage of supply — something he doubted.
“Oil prices, there is a common understanding that has nothing to do with supply and demand,” al-Badri said on the sidelines of an energy conference in Rome.
Also over the weekend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted Saturday as saying crude oil prices at $115 a barrel are too low, and that oil must “discover its real value.”
It’s comments like these that make me want to strangle the people who refuse to let the US drill for its own oil, people who probably don’t know squat about oil drilling. We have to listen to nonsense like this while having the means to get out from under OPEC’s control, yet we won’t use them. It’s infuriating.
The GOP should be beating the Donkeys blood raw, day after day after day, over this.
That is misleading. The Oil Minister said there wasn't plans to increase production capacity beyond 13 MMBPD. Saudi Arabia is producing 9 MMBPD now. They only plan a 44% increase in their capacity over their current production. What other country plans to grow that much? When will the US even open up most of our most promising areas left for exploration and production?
One of the goals of the 9/11 attackers was to destabilize our economy, of which bankrupting the airline industry was a part.
Look behind AQ and you will see a perverse collection of Saudi freaks and Iranian military.
Take ‘em out. If its a war they want then give it to them.
By proxy or otherwise.
Not a peep.
If a Republican tells the truth, and there are no reporters willing to write about it, did it really happen?
We know why the oil is high now and anybody with common sense knew this was going to happen 40 years ago. We needed to get off foreign oil dependence years ago.
My question is, why haven’t McCain or President Bush exposed liberal environmentalists as the cause of this oil crisis? I think I may know the answer..
This is the first year I’m sending NO money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee or our hopeful John McCain..
Oil spikes to record above $117 a barrel after tanker attack
Breitbart | Apr 21, 2008
Posted on 04/21/2008 2:29:36 AM PDT by dawn53
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2004613/posts
*Scowls*
Searching for posts before posting doesn’t work well if the title is always different.
:’) It doesn’t work that well anyway. :’D
Because McCain is one of them as well.
Voted YES on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska’s ANWR.
Reference: Bar Oil and Gas Leasing amendment; Bill S Amdt 2358 to S 1932 ; vote number 2005-288 on Nov 3, 2005
Voted YES on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Reference: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge anti-drilling Amendment; Bill S AMDT 168 to S.Con.Res. 18 ; vote number 2005-52 on Mar 16, 2005
Voted YES on removing consideration of drilling ANWR from budget bill
Reference: Bill SConRes 23 ; vote number 2003-59 on Mar 19, 2003
Voted NO on drilling ANWR on national security grounds
Reference: Bill S.517 ; vote number 2002-71 on Apr 18, 2002
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_McCain_Energy_+_Oil.htm
Agreed, there is a lot of amateur hour going on in oil economics. Several factors are increasing crude prices. Although I believe domestic oil production would be a good thing for the US, controlling the future market on oil would be helpful. If you read this article, the amount of oil impacted is a pittance and short term. It is giving speculators a reason to drive up futures contracts to protect the spot prices on the previous future contracts they bought.
I see several claiming we need to make this particular commodity harder to trade. It will only push even more of the trading to the many other future exchanges that already trade petroleum like London, Tokyo, Singapore and Dubai.
I don't see Dubai ever making it harder for traders if the price remains high. With electronic trading, the location of the actual exchange means little.
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