Tag: Oil Prices

Stop Whining!

OMG!  Gas has gone up to $3.54 a gallon the world as we know it is ending!

All the crises in the Middle East is driving speculation on the oil and supply of oil and as they speculate we are paying more and more for the black life’s blood of the US…how can we continue with such a drag on the economy?

First of all….shut up!  Stop the damn whining!

Second, just how short is your memories?  All this played out3 years ago when oil price hit in the neighborhood of $150 a barrel…..and all of you were just as wimpy as now….but NO one called for the use of the Strategic Reserves at that time…..but now your panic is calling for such a lame idea….Lame?  Yes, lame!  Three years ago after the speculators had a good week or so, the market stabilzed and all went back to pretty much normal….

Listen, if a camel farts in the Middle East it will effect the price of oil…this is something that pampered little shits will just have to accept…..and if you people would forgo the status symbols such as the vehicles that get 2 gallons to the mile, then you would Not be as freaky as you are now……use your mind and shut bellowing like a wounded buffalo every time the price of gas goes up….If you must have these beasts call luxury then by God just buck up and take responsibility for your action…..for your egocentric behavior…..

A simple economics lesson for you slow witted……oil prices go up and they go down….it is called a cycle…..and NO amount of whining or bitching is gonna change that…..so to consider the use of SPR just so you do not have to pay a few bucks more is just way to petty and it will NOT stop this from happening……

Get over yourselves!  Stop whining!

Surprise–You Pay!

Daily Agitator

From the VOMITORIUM

The BIG news for the last month is the raging oil leak a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico…..BP, the responsible party, has tried several different methods of capping this massive flow out of a broken drill hole.  Their next attempt will be to pump drilling mud and concrete into the hole to try and seal it up and stop the killing of the environment.

Back in the day, the Exxon Valdez run a ground with a drunk captain at the wheel and was the responsible one and after years of litigation, the Supreme Court let Exxon off the hook for only about half of what they owed.  The environment in Alaska that was effected by the oil spill, still has not recovered some twenty years later…..and the Gulf spill has all the earmarks as a much bigger spill with  more devastation than Alaska.

Sorry to be a downer, but there are some things that the people need to know.  There is a proposal before Congress as we speak…….

The House “oil spill response” measure, included among others in a larger bill, proposes that the tax be increased from its current rate of 8 cents a barrel to 32 cents. This is projected to raise nearly $10 billion over the next 10 years for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

A good idea, right?  They want to replenish a quickly disappearing clean up fund and also to try and expand the fund.  I hear the yell, “make them pay!”….if this passes it will do nothing to the company as a xconsequence of bad drilling procedures….it will be passed on to us, the American people…..

“We’re not talking a big impact here; we are talking about adding less than a penny to the cost of the fuel,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, referring to the impact that the increase would have on the price of gasoline.

According to Kloza’s calculations, the 8-cent tax on a barrel of oil works out to 0.19 cents per gallon of gas. He said that an increase to 32 cents on a barrel of oil would equal 0.76 cents per gallon of gas.

Now you have something to yell about……you WILL be paying more and the oil companies will be making more…..YOU will be paying the oil company’s “irresponsibility” tax for them……once again the American people will be bent over and no lube…….Ain’t capitalism great?

Green technology Is Starting To Take Off

“Green chemistry” start-up Genomatica on Tuesday said that it has developed a process to use sugar, rather than petroleum, to produce a common industrial chemical.

The announcement, timed to coincide with the GoingGreen conference in San Francisco this week, is a milestone for the company which made a business strategy shift last year from developing software for genetic engineering to licensing specially designed micro-organisms.

Its first product is a bacteria tuned to turn sugar during fermentation into 1,4 Butanediol (BDO), a chemical used as an additive to textiles and car bumpers. The company expects to have its first customer next year.

By using sugar from sugar cane as a feedstock, industrial chemical companies can get a cheaper alternative to petroleum-derived chemicals, while investing in processes that are less polluting and nontoxic, said Genomatica CEO Chris Gann.

Gann said that the Genomatica uses simulation software to determine the most expedient way to customize E coli bacteria. Then genetic engineers manipulate genes so that the organisms grow while producing the desired characteristics.

He said that its process will be cost-competitive with petroleum-based products even if the price of crude oil goes down to $50.

Speculators Under Every Rock

And now the rest of the story.

Institutional investors drove oil prices to all-time highs this summer, and the same players are also responsible for much of the $44-per-barrel loss since then, according to a Sept. 10 report that is being used to bolster calls for greater trading regulation.

The report from a hedge fund investor who has grown prominent in the oil speculation debate, Michael Masters, comes as crude oil has staged a 28% retreat in the past two months. But Masters and backers of his report—including many congressional Democrats—say prices could return to previous highs if reform legislation isn’t passed. “Americans won’t stand for being held up at the pump by these Wall Street scoundrels every time they fill up their gas tank,” Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said on Sept. 10 at the report’s release. She was joined by Masters, Adam K. White of White Knight Research & Trading, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), and Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

According to Masters’ report, an influx of “long-only” investors—large investors like pension funds and endowments that bet prices would rise—poured into the oil market in recent years. Their investments reached a peak on July 11, when oil prices hit an all-time high above $147 per barrel.

But many oil market experts and analysts disagree. While acknowledging that demand may be slowing, they argue that oil’s dramatic price decline is evidence that a speculative investment bubble is beginning to burst

Former CFTC regulator Michael Greenberger says that tougher policies and more oversight by the CFTC, initiated in May (BusinessWeek.com, 6/9/08), have caused investors to flee commodities markets. “The only constant variable in the oil market since the spring has been tougher CFTC measures and more oversight,” says Greenberger, a law professor at the University of Maryland and former head of the CFTC’s Trading & Markets Div. “If actual supply and demand were at work, [oil] prices would have spiked with Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the onset of hurricane season.”

Dems Wanna Drill?

House Democrats, some chanting “drill, drill,” embraced a plan to open the door for more oil and natural-gas exploration along the entire U.S. coastline, in a shift showing the power of the energy issue in this election.

The Democrats’ turnabout marks a victory for the oil industry and Republicans, who have seized on the drilling issue in recent months. With gasoline prices still high at the pump, polls show Americans in favor of expanded oil production at home, and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has made the issue central to his campaign, as have congressional Republicans.

Even Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s presidential standard-bearer, has endorsed expanded drilling as part of a comprehensive bill boosting conservation and renewable energy, such as wind and solar power.

The decision to push the more aggressive plan in part reflects the leverage the White House has to shape the agenda. Bush aides have signaled that the president might not support a spending bill needed to finance basic government operations beyond Sept. 30 unless Democrats allow a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling to expire. It isn’t clear if the new House bill will ever become law. But given the sensitivity of the issue — and the White House’s leverage — the measure unveiled Wednesday can be seen as an opening bid in negotiations over details of the end-of-year spending bill.

The Democratic bill is designed to boost production and conservation, while putting the oil industry and its Republican allies in an uncomfortable position: choosing between much-coveted drilling rights in unexplored areas along the coast or the guaranteed benefit of tax breaks, which the bill would scale back under a provision that extends new tax preferences in support of renewable energy.

Will There Be A Vote On Drilling?

The energy issue is at or near the top of the agenda in competitive contests across the country. Many Republican candidates have taken to focusing on energy at the expense of nearly every other issue. And polls continue to show solid majorities of the public favoring more offshore drilling.

Moderate and conservative Democratic incumbents have been pushing their leaders for weeks to allow a vote on drilling. Pelosi, who represents one of the most liberal districts in the country, is a strong ally of environmentalists but has felt pressure to help her party’s most vulnerable members.

Democrats will use the comprehensive plan Pelosi discussed Saturday as a defense against charges that they won’t allow a vote on drilling. But the measure may contain enough unpalatable items for the GOP — particularly on taxes — that most members of the minority will vote against it, and Senate Republicans could decide to block it altogether.

So it still appears unlikely that the House and Senate will be able to agree on an energy package that would pass with bipartisan support and be signed by President Bush. Democratic leaders may prefer to wait until next year, when they expect to have bigger majorities on the Hill and, they hope, Obama in the White House.

A Question: Info Ink Commentary

Who is responsible for the last couple of gas shortages and high prices?  The media and oil industry economists say it is YOU, the consumer.  Why?  Because YOU are demanding more and more product.  Now, do you agree with this?  If you do you are an idiot!

For over a decade the oil giants spent millions upon millions buying and renting scientists and researchers to debunk the whole global warming theory.  That did not work as they intended, or did it?  Butr now they are selling the consumer a bill of goods on just how hard they are working on finding solutions to our energy addiction.

The leadership of the oil companies knew years ago what was coming yet they decided to help it along by showing just how kookie those concerned with the health of the environment were.  Instead of putting mush needed money into alt research.  These guys WILL not ever find a solution that they cannot charge for.  So we are left with ethanol and other such additives.

Yes, the American people are gluttons where oil and gas are concerned, but that sin could have been eliminated in the 70’s, but the industry saw fit to just help feed the addiction.  So, who is to blame?  The people for being stupid and the oil industry for worsening our addiction.

Now, is there a solution?  Of course, but not one that the oil industry will provide.

Democrats Scramble To Find A Policy On Oil

With 70% of the American people now supporting a policy of drilling offshore, the Dems have got to find a way to include it in their schtick.

With the politics of energy shifting as rapidly as gasoline prices, Democrats, led by Barack Obama, are retreating from long-held positions and scrambling to offer distressed voters more immediate relief from spiraling costs.

The change has been most striking on the campaign trail, where Obama said in a speech yesterday that he would abandon his past position and support tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to quickly cut prices at the gasoline pump.

His presidential campaign later released a statement warning that the “doubling of oil prices in the past year is a crisis for millions of Americans.”

Obama’s reversal on tapping the national stockpile of crude oil comes just days after he said, for the first time, that he would agree to some offshore drilling as part of a broader energy-policy compromise with Republicans, including John McCain, who has supported additional drilling.

Those shifts by Obama are indicative of the pressure politicians of both parties – but especially Democrats – are under to develop specific, short-term energy proposals in the face of rising costs. Against that backdrop, politicians risk looking insensitive if they put forth only solutions that could take years to hit the pump.

That jockeying reflects a shift in public opinion that has upended policy debates as gas prices have soared and the economy has soured. In California, where opposition to offshore drilling is widespread, a poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed 51 percent of respondents favoring more drilling – up 10 percentage points since July 2007, and the first time since the question was first posed in 2003 that more Californians favor offshore drilling than oppose it.

But the reality, there is no way that the US would become oil independent with either of these plans.

Where Does The Money Go?

As reported in the WSJ:

Iraq is generating revenue of about $80 billion a year, mainly from its vast reserves of crude oil, but spending only about 1% of the total on maintaining critical infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and sanitation, the U.S. government auditor said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has appropriated around $48 billion in the past several years to help reconstruction efforts, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

The GAO, which is the investigative arm of Congress, estimates that for 2008, Iraq could generate between $73.5 billion and $86.2 billion in total revenue, of which oil exports will account for between $66.5 billion to $79.2 billion. That is based on Iraqi oil ranging from $96.88 to $125.29 a barrel and oil export volumes ranging from 1.89 million to 2.01 million barrels a day.

That figure is up significantly from the oil-export sales from 2005-2007 that accounted for about $90.2 billion for both years. In that period, Iraq spent 90% of its $67 billion in expenditures on operating costs such as salaries, pensions and services. Most of the remainder was spent on investment expenditures, such as structures, machinery and vehicles.

Just 1% of the Iraqi government expenditures went to maintenance of roads, bridges, vehicles, buildings, water, sanitation and electricity installations, oil pipelines and weapons.

An interesting story, but still I want to know where does the money go?

Oil Is Falling–Info Ink Commentary

The last I heard, oil had fallen to $128 a barrel, good news, right? Depends on how you want to look at it. Yes, demand is down, but for how long? As demand falls, so will the price, or so goes a little economic axiom.

What could explain it? Consumers using less gas, is one. But the world’s largest market, China, is more like the answer. The Olympics approach and China has started an odd-even plan, Vehicles with odd plates drives one day and then the even drives. This is to try and cut down on the pollution for the Olympics.

That would cut China’s demand in half on a daily basis. This, IMO, is one of several reason for the fall in price. Granted not the only one, but one of the major reasons. This fall looks like a short term fall and will return to regular demand with the end of the Olympics.

Enjoy while you can–higher prices should return.