Oil sets new record above $118 a barrel on supply concerns

Associated Press ^ | 4/22/08 | PABLO GORONDI

[thackney]

Oil prices rose Tuesday to a all-time highs above $118 a barrel on concerns over supplies from some key producers.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose as high as $118.05 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, eclipsing Monday's all-time high of $117.83.

By midday in Europe, the contract had risen to $117.77, up 29 cents on Monday's close of $117.48 a barrel. The May contract expires at the end of trading Tuesday.

In London, Brent crude futures added 28 cents to $114.71 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

A Royal Dutch Shell PLC joint venture in Nigeria said Monday it may have to cut crude deliveries some 169,000 barrels a day in April and May because militants sabotaged a pipeline last week in the country's south.

The company, Shell Petroleum Development Co., declared force majeure on its April and May oil delivery contracts from its 400,000-barrel-a-day Bonny fields, effective April 22, a move that protects it from litigation if it fails to deliver on contractual obligations to buyers.

Militancy and lawlessness have spread in Nigeria's south, and attacks on oil infrastructure have become common.

"The disruption in Nigeria with Royal Dutch Shell is serious," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.

"It is light, sweet crude, which is much desired by the U.S. market during the summer gasoline season, so that certainly has affected the market," Shum said.

Nigeria is a major supplier to the United States. Attacks there in the past two years have cut nearly a quarter of the African country's oil output. Crude oil set a record above $117 Monday after the 150,000-ton tanker Takayama was attacked off the coast of Yemen as it headed for Saudi Arabia.

Kyodo News agency said there were no injuries, but the the rocket punctured a tank, spilling hundreds of gallons of fuel.

Analysts said comments Tuesday by the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries about plans to boost oil production target capacity by 5 million barrels a day by 2012 would not have an immediate effect on oil prices.

Speaking at an energy forum in Rome, OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla Salem el-Badri told reporters that issues of supply and demand were being discussed but he did not expect any agreement on whether prices are too high or too low.

"This is not anything new and it will not help ease oil prices," said Ehsan ul-Haq, head of research at JBC Energy in Vienna, Austria. "The oil futures market is very strong, but the physical markets are not so strong."

Other supply developments also factored into the market. In Mexico, oil production slipped 7.8 percent in the first quarter to 2.91 million barrels a day as output at the country's traditional oil fields wanes, state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos said. In Scotland, workers at Ineos PLC's 196,000 barrel-a-day Grangemouth refinery and petrochemical plant have threatened to strike for 48 hours from April 27 over changes to an employee pension plan.

The weak U.S. dollar has continued to support oil prices despite strengthening some this week against the yen and euro. Commodities such as oil and gold are still attractive hedges to investors seeking hedges against further drops in the currency.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 0.04 cent to $3.3110 a gallon while gasoline futures lost 0.29 cent to $2.9762 a gallon. Natural gas futures were unchanged at $10.733 per 1,000 cubic feet.

[thackney]

Assuming your Freeper name is based upon your enjoyment of shooting why don't you join us at:

3rd Annual TexasCowboy Memorial Shoot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1853692/posts

This is an Annual Memorial to a Great Freeper, Shooter and Texan Driller. We can swap war stories from the oil field. Maybe we know some of the same trash.

[thackney]

why deplete our sources when we can deplete the sources of others?

Because sending our oil payments to enemies helps fund their terrorist attacks for starters?

[Eaker]

I worked with thackney for years and have know him for more than a decade.

I don’t care about the subject matter at present but I will tell you that he is one of the most honest people that I have ever known. He is also one of the best double E’s that I have had the pleasure to work with. He indeed has 20+ years in the oil and gas industry.

Feel free to disagree with him but don’t call him a liar.

[humblegunner]

Feel free to disagree with him but don’t call him a liar.

Ditto.

[TexasGunLover]

You may disagree with him, but your slanderous comments are out of line.

LOL, now you've got your alternate login's lying on his behalf. You no more worked in Yemen or in any other petroleum based capacity than I did. If you did, your ignorance in the field is staggering. Again, no reason to lie to support an uninformed position. That would really put you in class with your liberal friends and RINO's it seems to me.

Let's try to stick to facts, and not uninformed opinions. Bottom line is that drilling our own reserves while there is oil available on the market place puts the United States at long term risk.

[TexasGunLover]

Because sending our oil payments to enemies helps fund their terrorist attacks for starters?

...and when we run out, and they have all that remains, it will be very hard to fly our jets and drive our tanks to fight them.

Think long term....

[TexasGunLover]

It's very hard to assert a position of being a electrical engineer when not having an informed opinion anyone in the industry would have.

We're drilling enough right now just fine.

[Allegra]

Hey, Genius; I said thackney worked in Yemen. I worked in the US on the procurement side of the project. Same compamy, same project. I also worked with thackney at another company a year or so later.

That being said, I have worked in the Middle East for four years and am still working over there.

So, now you have:
Wrongly called thackney a liar.
Wrongly called me a liar.
Shown anyone who is reading this thread that you have very poor reading comprehension skills.

You have issues, Dude. You need to switch to decaf or something. And stop acting so insecure. Nobody's impressed. You're just showing your a$$.

[Allegra]

LOL, now you've got your alternate login's lying on his behalf.

Oh, and Mr. Delusional, "logins" is a plural, not a possessive. Only uneducated people don't understand when and when not to use apostrophes.

[thackney]

I am quite surprised you haven't read Allegra's posts on her years in Iraq.

You no more worked in Yemen or in any other petroleum based capacity than I did.

Come to the shoot in two weeks. After you meet the people you are calling liars, we can all learn from each other. I'll bring pictures of me from some job sites. Why don't you do the same.

your ignorance in the field is staggering

Why don't you put away the insults and try dealing directly with the topic.

Let's try to stick to facts, and not uninformed opinions.

Great plan, will you stay with it as well?

Bottom line is that drilling our own reserves while there is oil available on the market place puts the United States at long term risk.

Explain to me why it is okay to produce oil and gas offshore of Texas and Louisiana but not Florida?

[thackney]

Here is a link to Central Production Facility I was at in Yemen.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=15.591748,49.136825&spn=0.008908,0.021544&t=h&z=16

I was on the design team for about a year in 1992 then followed the job through construction and start-up in 93 & 94. Canadian Occidental was the operating company although Occidental Petroleum and Shell were partners.

We were 60 miles from the nearest paved road. Out of the 42 Wildcat wells 39 were significant producers the first couple years. We built 180 miles of pipeline to the terminal we built.

[TexasGunLover]

Why don't you put away the insults and try dealing directly with the topic.

Sure, please tell me why today, right now, we need to deplete our oil resources when they are not needed? They are not needed because we can buy as much as we want on the open market.

Explain to me why it is okay to produce oil and gas offshore of Texas and Louisiana but not Florida?

There you go again, I never professed that. I stated that we didn't need to drill, not if it was okay not to drill in one place or another. The basis of my argument is that we do not need to drill more than we are drilling today because we can purchase what we need from those willing to sell it to us.

The root of my point is that we don't need to drill. I support drilling EVERYWHERE... we just don't need to do it today.

You are correct that I was out of line accusing you of lying. I was absolutely wrong and reacted poorly. However, injecting supposed credentials into anonymous arguments rather than arguing the points lends zero credibility to the argument.

I could state that I was Dad Joiner himself (if he wasn't dead), and it wouldn't lend any credibility to my arguments.

I'm just fed up with the position that we must drill more so we can reduce dependence on foreign oil. I would rather deplete our enemies supply before our own, and that's the crux of my argument.

Again, I apologize for calling you a liar, but your supposed experience in the industry is no more credible than any experience I profess.

[thackney]

we need to deplete our oil resources when they are not needed? They are not needed because we can buy as much as we want on the open market.

Because I believe the amount of dependence we have on foreign sources is too great a risk to our country. To have a repeat of OPEC's actions of 1973 would be devastating to our country today.

produce oil and gas offshore of Texas and Louisiana but not Florida?

There you go again, I never professed that.

You said "it is foolish to reduce ANY of your own stockpiles while you can still buy it..."

Do you still hold that believe or would you change it? Is not Texas and Louisiana part of those stockpiles?

You are correct that I was out of line

No problems, lets move past it.

injecting supposed credentials into anonymous arguments rather than arguing the points lends zero credibility to the argument.

that started with Post #32.

your supposed experience in the industry is no more credible than any experience I profess

Agreed, and my or your knowledge of producing oil or building facilities has little to do with the decision of whose resources to produce first.

Again, consider coming to the shoot if you are anywhere near the Gulf Coast (or even if you're not, one guy is coming from New York; last year I flew in from Alaska). Meet some more Freepers and put some faces with the names. You will never regret it and you may shoot some very interesting weapons.

[Eaker]

However, injecting supposed credentials into anonymous arguments rather than arguing the points lends zero credibility to the argument.

These are not "supposed" they are confirmed.

I would rather have surgery performed by a surgeon than an engineer. I would rather the hospital was designed by an engineer than a surgeon.

thackney's credentials are solid.

[TexasGunLover]

Because I believe the amount of dependence we have on foreign sources is too great a risk to our country. To have a repeat of OPEC's actions of 1973 would be devastating to our country today.

How is it a dependence if we are not dependent on it? If we have other reserves that we both agree are sufficient, then we are not dependent on foreign oil.

My original comment was to the standard "Drill Alaska, Drill North Dakota" comment that is always on these threads. If I have insinuated that I advocated stopping all drilling, then that was in error or misunderstood. My position is that we should not risk the long term security of the United States by drilling large reserves that aren't already tapped a great deal today, because we can buy it from other sources.

Again, we should not worry about the problems money can solve, but rather those that money can't solve. Depleting our reserves while we can deplete the reserves of possible enemies is not in the best interest of the United States.

[thackney]

if we are not dependent on it? If we have other reserves that we both agree are sufficient, then we are not dependent on foreign oil.

Because it would take decades if we started now to get the production up to anywhere near the level of our current imports. How soon do you we could produce an additional 10 MMBPD?

Again, we should not worry about the problems money can solve, but rather those that money can't solve. Depleting our reserves while we can deplete the reserves of possible enemies is not in the best interest of the United States.

In this, we will have to disagree.

Cheers

[IamConservative]

It seems to me that people keep moving their money into the next thing every time a bubble bursts, so assuming you are right and the oil futures bubble is near its end, where is that money likely to go? Is it going to be lost, or moved into the next thing to create a new bubble, and if so, where? If you guess right, you could make a fortune.

Have you looked at the corn futures?

[woollyone]

My other vehicle...the Hemi Larami Quad Cab Ram has your hauling, space, style and speed numbers beat, hands down.

nice try though tough guy! lol

And BTW...you actually bought...paid for...a used cop car..and are boasting about it? In this area the drivers of those used cop cars are usually part of the gang banger crowd. I wouldn’t be caught dead in one!

And you actually pay $100 per month to keep that beater of a wreck on the road?!? And are bragging about it?

sux2BU~!

I’m secure enough in my manhood to be able to drive the Yaris. And the chicks dig the car! Took a hot one to the Keys with me this weekend! And i don’t look like a crackhead driving it...unlike the second hand cop car look.

So you have fun with your beater...and the $100 a month to keep it running each month!

[Don W]

Actually, it was my dad’s buddy’s wife’s car. It’s been babied its whole life, and definitely looks, and likely drives better than your Dog truk.

I believe the term is “low mile peach” for the lux-o-barge. Quite literally “little old lady driven” from the day it was driven off the lot.

Unless your truk is a crew cab, there is no way you can carry as many folks nearly as comfortably. I also sincerely doubt your fuel mileage claim, but that’s neither here nor there.

You like your truk, I like my car, and that’s the way it is.

Enjoy your toys, I know I sure do! ;)

[woollyone]

Well not a crew cab...that’s the work trucks...this is more luxury, so they calls it a quad cab...4-door, leather...loaded. Best mpg in the truck is ~21 at a creaping 60mph.

Andy yeah...41mpg in the Yaris this weekend...no BS.
Check yarisworld.com and you’ll see what others are getting. Some are getting in the mid 40’s, but that is with mypermiling techniques. Persaonlly, I’m not gonna get that carried away though.

Before heading out, I changed to synthetis oil and put the tires up form 32psi to 40 psi, jsut to see how she’d handle and the how the mpg would jump.
As a commuter, it’ll certainly help pay the bills. Saves me $300/month in gas and the car payment is $240/month. The math works!

Of course I drive it as though Nobody sees me (like on my harley), just to avoid getting squished in traffic.

But hey...at least I didn’;t get one of those euroweenie not-so-smart cars taht don’t even have a back seat, let alone room for more than 5 grocery bags.

Ride safe.