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NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Oil prices will hit $100 a barrel before dipping to $80, and should pierce the triple-digit threshold within the next six months, investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday. "Get ready for $100, it is coming up. A hundred dollars will come before $80," said the Texas oilman who heads the BP Capital hedge fund during an interview with CNBC television channel, adding that he expects the market to become adjusted to $100 oil. "You'll see it ($100 oil) within the next six months. A hundred dollars is going to become routine." U.S. oil...

NEW YORK - Oil prices briefly fell below $50 per barrel Thursday for the first time since May 25, 2005, after the government reported larger-than-expected jumps in crude oil and gasoline inventories. Oil has dropped 17 percent since the end of 2006 amid weeks of mild winter weather in the U.S. Northeast, a key consumer of heating fuels, and growing energy stockpiles. "There's no doubt that this is significant," said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading Corp. "If you're a bull, the only thing you can hold your hat on is they didn't close below $50." The price for a barrel...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- November crude dropped 93 cents to close at $57.59 a barrel Wednesday, marking the contract's weakest closing level since June 2005 as traders eyed the latest news from key oil producers and awaited Thursday's data on U.S. petroleum supplies. November unleaded gasoline fell 1.65 cents to close at $1.4503 a gallon and November heating oil closed at $1.672 a gallon, down 0.89 cent. November natural gas fell 31.6 cents, or 4.9%, to end at $6.15 per million British thermal units

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices fell below $60 a barrel in thin trading Friday on doubts that OPEC would cut output to lift crude prices. "The market is not expecting any production cuts at the moment," said Tetsu Emori, an analyst with Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo. "The market sentiment is not really confident. Some oil producing countries have already cut production but the market hasn't really reacted." Light, sweet crude for November delivery dropped 40 cents to $59.63 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midmorning in Singapore.

bn SINGAPORE - Oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel in Asian trading on Monday, and analysts attributed the bailout to high inventories and receding fears about supply threats. Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore, said hedge funds and investors were reacting to a soft market but noted that $60 is still a very strong price and said the market was still vulnerable to price spikes. Light sweet crude for November delivery fell 60 cents to $59.95 a barrel in midmorning Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices have dropped 23...

LONDON (AP) -- Oil prices fell below $70 a barrel Tuesday as Tropical Storm Ernesto veered away from the oil and gas region of the Gulf of Mexico, easing concern that output would be disrupted. Light sweet crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 85 cents to $69.76 a barrel in electronic trading by afternoon in Europe. It last traded below $70 on Aug. 18. The fall extended a $1.90 drop on Monday, when it settled at $70.61. October Brent crude at London's ICE Futures exchange dropped 86 cents to $69.96 a barrel. Royal Dutch Shell...

LONDON - Oil hit a record $74 a barrel Wednesday on fears Iran's intensifying dispute with the West may hit oil supplies and after U.S. gasoline stocks dropped. London's Brent crude settled $1.22 higher at $73.73 a barrel after peaking at a record $74. U.S. gasoline stocks slumped more than 5 million barrels last week, government data released Wednesday showed. It was a larger fall than analysts polled by Reuters expected, and supplies are now nearly 5 percent below last year's level. "The EIA (inventory) data are bullish in light of expectations," said Kyle Cooper, analyst at IAF Advisors in...

Opec President Shaikh Ahmad Al Fahd Al Sabah said yesterday he will propose the cartel raise its output by 500,000 barrels per day when the group meets in September in an attempt to help cool oil prices at record highs. Shaikh Ahmad, also Kuwaiti oil minister, said he will also propose a 500,000 bpd increase in the group's official output ceiling at the September 19th meeting. "We hope that the resolution to the board to increase production and the ceiling, 500,000 (bpd) and 500,000 (bpd), and to refresh the dialogue with all the main consumers, I hope this will...

In light of the spate of "Top Five" vanities posted recently, it occured to me that there hasn't been a post seeking opinions for the worlds sexiest firearms. So, without further ado, my personal selection for the Top Five sexiest firearms are: At number 5, the Barrett Model 82A1 50 BMG. She's a little on the heavy side, but man can she pack a punch. Number 4 goes to the Freedom Arms 454 Casull Premier Grade. She's sleek and well put together, but when you trip the hammer you had better be holding on tight. Number 3 is the Bushmaster...

Perhaps you're wondering what the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory in Kearneysville WV wants to do with $3,638,000 of your hard-earned tax dollars. Maybe you want to know why animal waste management in Bowling Green KY costs the federal government $2,300,000. (What are those animals eating -- too much of that Appalachian Fruit?) Possibly you just want to know why $100,000 of the money you send to the IRS is going to teach Iowans who want to plant trees in the Trees Forever Program about the injuries snow can do to those trees. I'm more concerned with the damage pork-barrel projects like...

Crude futures fell by more $2 a barrel on Monday as traders anticipated warmer weather in the U.S. Northeast later in the week and responded to weekend snowstorms in the U.S. Midwest that kept motorists off the road. Traders brushed off any impact from the massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, where the government oil company and Exxon Mobil Corp., which produces and process natural gas there, said operations and exports were continuing as normal after brief power outages. Light, sweet crude for February delivery plunged $2.78, or 6 percent, to $41.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile...

Gobble, gobble. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was in keeping with the spirit of the season when he denounced the most recent omnibus congressional appropriations bill as ``one big fat turkey,'' albeit, a holiday bird that was ``packed with pork,'' not stuffing.       One Washington, D.C., watchdog group has identified some 12,000 earmarks for special projects in the $388 billion spending plan which is on its way to the president's desk. The cost to taxpayers? Some $16 billion, or 4 percent of the total.       And in that most partisan of cities - after an election leaving Democrats and Republicans almost...

IS ANOTHER oil shock in the making? All indications point to that considering the rise in world crude prices, not just in the spot market, but also in the futures segment. In the past, the rise in the spot price of crude as, for instance, ahead of both the Gulf wars, was not accompanied by a sympathetic jump in the forward price simply because the market expected the spike to be short-lived. But, this time, the forward price has been going up sharply. Crude oil has jumped 13 per cent in three weeks. Oil for July delivery reached a record...

Yamani: oil may hit $100 a barrel By George Trefgarne, Economics Editor (Filed: 25/09/2002) Sheikh Yamani, the former head of Opec who terrorised the West with threats over oil supplies in the 1970s, returned to the fray yesterday when he warned that the price of crude could triple to $100 a barrel if there is a war against Iraq. His comments contributed to another torrid day on financial markets, where shares tumbled. The FTSE 100 index closed down 68.3 at 3,671.1, a level unseen since December 1995. In an interview in a German magazine DM Euro, Sheikh Yamani - who...

Sep 15, 2002Trial Set to Begin for Murder Suspect Accused of Stashing Victims' Bodies in BarrelsBy John MilburnAssociated Press Writer TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The first two bodies were found crammed inside yellow metal barrels in a field in rural Kansas. Days later, three more missing women were found dead in 55-gallon drums at a storage locker 30 miles away in Missouri. Authorities say John E. Robinson Sr. - who owned the field and rented the locker - had trolled the Internet for sex under the name "slavemaster" and is responsible for both Kansas murders as well as four...