Free Republic

...“In 2016, when OPEC completes this objective of cleaning up the American marginal market, the oil price will start growing again,” said Fedun. “The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish.” No surprise, Friday was a bloodbath for shares of America’s oil and gas independents. Goodrich Petroleum fell 34% on the day, and is off 79% in three months. Swift Energy fell 30%, Penn Virginia and Sanchez Energy down 29%, SandRidge 26%. Some of these, like Swift, are highly leveraged, and there’s even some concern that bidding...

Remember way back in June, when oil was $115 a barrel? Now it's trading at around $67.90 a barrel for Brent crude and some analysts are predicting, given the right conditions, it could tumble to as low as $40 a barrel. Weak demand, a strong U.S. dollar and booming U.S. oil production are the three main reasons behind the fall, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which warned of a "new chapter" for oil markets, which could even affect the social stability of some countries. Russia is already feeling some pain: the ruble tumbled about 4 percent on Monday,...

The giant flies Just as Airbus's super-jumbo makes its maiden flight, Boeing bounces back WHEN the new A380 took off from Airbus's French production base in Toulouse on April 27th, it should have been the European aircraft manufacturer's big week. The successful first test-flight of a 555-seat super-jumbo was quite an event. Instead, Airbus's American rival Boeing almost stole the show. On April 25th, Boeing said that, if all the options are taken up in a new order for widebody jets from Air Canada, the value at list prices would be around $15 billion—making it one of the biggest aircraft...