Oh, so there's no manipulation of oil prices, eh?

[Le Jacquelope]

People who believe that should have their high school diplomas revoked. Hell, why not just put their heads in plastic bags and save us smart people some wasted oxygen?

These jackholes are talking about raising oil prices to $75 a barrel. How do you do that without manipulation?

God truly wasted a brain on anyone who doesn't see this as manipulation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_opec_meeting

Saudi king says oil should be $75 per barrel
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY and ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writers Tarek El-tablawy And Adam Schreck, Ap Business Writers 56 mins ago

CAIRO, Egypt – Saudi Arabia's king says the price of oil should be $75 a barrel, much higher than it is now, but his oil minister indicated Saturday that no measures will likely be taken until OPEC meets again next month.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will "do what needs to be done" to shore up falling oil prices when the cartel meets Dec. 17 in Algeria.

Naimi did not entirely rule out the chance that the cartel would slash output at a hastily convened meeting of OPEC members in Cairo Saturday, but he said the bloc needs to wait until the Algeria meeting to assess the impact of earlier production cuts.

His comments came after Saudi King Abdullah told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah in an interview published Saturday that oil should be priced at $75 a barrel.

"We believe the fair price for oil is $75 a barrel," he said, without saying how the price could be raised.

The price of crude stood at about $147 a barrel in mid-July. On Friday, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was trading at about $54 per barrel.

The king was echoed by Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad al-Attiya, who told the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya that prices needed to rise to guarantee investment into the oil sector.

"The price between 70 to 80 (dollars a barrel) is the one encouraging in investment and developing new or current oil fields," he said. "It falls below 70 (dollars), the investment would freeze, which will lead to a crisis in supply in the future."

The cartel has already held an emergency meeting in Vienna on Oct. 24 to announce a production cut of 1.5 million barrels per day.

The cut failed to stop the price drop, and the cartel hastily convened the Cairo gathering on the sidelines of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting.

"There is total confusion" among OPEC's 13 members, said Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. "These people ... really have no business model. They basically thrive when oil prices go up, and now they are crying uncle when prices go down."

And down they have gone, in an avalanche sped along by a world financial meltdown that also threatens to cut deeply into OPEC member states' government budgets.

Kuwait's oil minister, Mohammed al-Aleem, said he believes there is no need for OPEC to make a decision in Cairo on cutting output. But he warned the market is oversupplied, and didn't rule out the need for OPEC to cut production further.

"We believe a decision could be taken ... but I think it will happen in Algeria," he said.

Al-Aleem said current prices could undercut investment in future projects and were not good for either producers or consumers.

The recent price drop has left OPEC price hawks Venezuela and Iran clamoring for further reductions of at least 1 million barrels a day. Both countries need crude at about $90 per barrel to meet spending needs aimed in part at propping up domestically unpopular regimes.

Other OPEC members, such as Nigeria and Ecuador, face budget problems too, making them reluctant to implement more cuts that might shrink revenues further.

The Saudis are better positioned to cope with the drop in prices. The International Monetary Fund estimates Riyadh needs crude in the range of about $50 per barrel for 2008 fiscal accounts to break even.

OPEC itself, along with the International Energy Agency, has significantly revised down its projections for demand growth in 2009.

Meanwhile, global crude inventories are growing, as evidenced by a U.S. government report showing a surprisingly large 7 million barrel build in stocks last week in the world's largest energy consumer.

OPEC's last round of cuts would put its total production at about 30.5 million barrels per day, according to the IEA. That is about 500,000 barrels per day higher than the forecast call on OPEC crude in much of 2009.

A Nov. 24 Oppenheimer research report says that for oil to rebound to $65 a barrel, OPEC would need to cut crude production by more than 3 million barrels per day from its September levels — a move it called highly unlikely.

_____

Associated Press Writer Hadeel al-Shalchi contributed to this report.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

People who believe that should have their high school diplomas revoked. Hell, why not just put their heads in plastic bags and save us smart people some wasted oxygen?

These jackholes are talking about raising oil prices to $75 a barrel. How do you do that without manipulation?

God truly wasted a brain on anyone who doesn't see this as manipulation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_opec_meeting

Saudi king says oil should be $75 per barrel
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY and ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writers Tarek El-tablawy And Adam Schreck, Ap Business Writers 56 mins ago

CAIRO, Egypt – Saudi Arabia's king says the price of oil should be $75 a barrel, much higher than it is now, but his oil minister indicated Saturday that no measures will likely be taken until OPEC meets again next month.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will "do what needs to be done" to shore up falling oil prices when the cartel meets Dec. 17 in Algeria.

Naimi did not entirely rule out the chance that the cartel would slash output at a hastily convened meeting of OPEC members in Cairo Saturday, but he said the bloc needs to wait until the Algeria meeting to assess the impact of earlier production cuts.

His comments came after Saudi King Abdullah told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah in an interview published Saturday that oil should be priced at $75 a barrel.

"We believe the fair price for oil is $75 a barrel," he said, without saying how the price could be raised.

The price of crude stood at about $147 a barrel in mid-July. On Friday, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was trading at about $54 per barrel.

The king was echoed by Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad al-Attiya, who told the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya that prices needed to rise to guarantee investment into the oil sector.

"The price between 70 to 80 (dollars a barrel) is the one encouraging in investment and developing new or current oil fields," he said. "It falls below 70 (dollars), the investment would freeze, which will lead to a crisis in supply in the future."

The cartel has already held an emergency meeting in Vienna on Oct. 24 to announce a production cut of 1.5 million barrels per day.

The cut failed to stop the price drop, and the cartel hastily convened the Cairo gathering on the sidelines of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting.

"There is total confusion" among OPEC's 13 members, said Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. "These people ... really have no business model. They basically thrive when oil prices go up, and now they are crying uncle when prices go down."

And down they have gone, in an avalanche sped along by a world financial meltdown that also threatens to cut deeply into OPEC member states' government budgets.

Kuwait's oil minister, Mohammed al-Aleem, said he believes there is no need for OPEC to make a decision in Cairo on cutting output. But he warned the market is oversupplied, and didn't rule out the need for OPEC to cut production further.

"We believe a decision could be taken ... but I think it will happen in Algeria," he said.

Al-Aleem said current prices could undercut investment in future projects and were not good for either producers or consumers.

The recent price drop has left OPEC price hawks Venezuela and Iran clamoring for further reductions of at least 1 million barrels a day. Both countries need crude at about $90 per barrel to meet spending needs aimed in part at propping up domestically unpopular regimes.

Other OPEC members, such as Nigeria and Ecuador, face budget problems too, making them reluctant to implement more cuts that might shrink revenues further.

The Saudis are better positioned to cope with the drop in prices. The International Monetary Fund estimates Riyadh needs crude in the range of about $50 per barrel for 2008 fiscal accounts to break even.

OPEC itself, along with the International Energy Agency, has significantly revised down its projections for demand growth in 2009.

Meanwhile, global crude inventories are growing, as evidenced by a U.S. government report showing a surprisingly large 7 million barrel build in stocks last week in the world's largest energy consumer.

OPEC's last round of cuts would put its total production at about 30.5 million barrels per day, according to the IEA. That is about 500,000 barrels per day higher than the forecast call on OPEC crude in much of 2009.

A Nov. 24 Oppenheimer research report says that for oil to rebound to $65 a barrel, OPEC would need to cut crude production by more than 3 million barrels per day from its September levels — a move it called highly unlikely.

_____

Associated Press Writer Hadeel al-Shalchi contributed to this report.

I don't lose any sleep over things that are out of my control. Everyone has their hands out when voting for oil legislation or not voting for oil legislation regarding price control and price fixing.

Of course oil prices are manipulated (you word). I prefer the word "fixed", as in fixing a crooked fight or fixing a horse race.

The world is controlled by a select group of powerful people.

Why haven't the food prices gone down with the lower cost of oil as they have risen with the price of oil going up? Now, there's a question and there's more evidence of price fixing.

Coffee prices haven't been reduced since the last hike when coffee manufacturers said because of this hurricane, that flood, and high cost of oil...blah, blah.

We the people possess the power to force change. Only, we the people are too busy, too ignorant, and too non-involved to get involved. If people stopped drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, driving fast in their 5,000 SUV's and stopped watching their big screen TV's, those in power would stop and listen to millions of people who were standing outside their homes holding torches.

"What are all those people doing outside my mansion, James?"

"They want to skin you for raising prices again when there was no need to push the prices any higher."

If we as the most powerful group came together and boycotted these assholes, they'd listen or perish.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

JERKUELOPE forgets that they charged $150 a barrel for oil 60 days ago. In 60 days they may be lucky to get $10 a barrel.

 

[incubus666]

OPEC has been around since 1960 with the express purpose of controling oil prices through changes in oil production.

Suddenly this is something new?

You are kidding? Right.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Everything is new to JERKELOPE; every experience he has is a novel event.

 

[ellynei]

Namecalling?

I'm going back to my cave a bit, it's such a friendly place.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Namecalling?

I'm going back to my cave a bit, it's such a friendly place.

Namecalling from whom? One of the idiots I have on ignore?

Well, of course. When people are losing arguments they have to resort to name calling. I had a lot of people from here telling me there was no manipulation in the oil industry. There's a lot of embarrassed, angry folks out there. But instead of being angry at themselves for being so stupid, they take it out on the guy who's keeping score.

 

[sr71plt]

Everything is new to JERKELOPE; every experience he has is a novel event.

Not only that, it's always fodder for personal rage. (And anyone not sharing that personal rage is evil and to be harrassed.)

 

[JackLuis]

Not only that, it's always fodder for personal rage. (And anyone not sharing that personal rage is evil and to be harrassed.)

So OPEC is worried about the price of oil and manipulating the production to get the prices up.. Not news but it does point out that we need a new source of power particularly transport fuels.

Even suplemental alternitive fuel sources will make a difference in Supply Demand pricing. T. Boone Pickens natual gas/ wind power ideas make a lot of sense to give us some control of OPEC's monoply powers, Maybe?

Better yet is if we find a renewable source of fuels that don't cause the ecological damage of Corn for ethanol to the Gulf of Mexico, where fertilizer run off is causing a dead spot the size of Texas in the fishing grounds.

Anybody know of a crop that doesn't need lots of fertilizer or cultivation and can be grown on marginal land to produce fuel?

Oh hell that would be hemp, wouldn't it. Well we can't grow hemp, oh hell no that would cause us to not need to clearcut our forests for paper or wast our scarse water resources on cotton and how would the DEA be able to tell if it was Hemp or Marajuna?

We couldn't have that. We wouldn't want to develop a distributed production infrastructure for fuels production that would not make our farmers dependant on the fertilizer and seed companies.

That woud be Bad!

 

[sr71plt]

So OPEC is worried about the price of oil and manipulating the production to get the prices up.. Not news but it does point out that we need a new source of power particularly transport fuels.

And nothing evil, I don't think. It's their oil and practically the only valuable resource they have. Why shouldn't they try to get the most for it that they can?

 

[JackLuis]

And nothing evil, I don't think. It's their oil and practically the only valuable resource they have. Why shouldn't they try to get the most for it that they can?

And why shouldn't we try to keep the price of thier oil down?

Sounds fair to me but the cost of Oil is not only in our balance of payments debit it is in the ecological cost of not finding a renewable resource to allow our grandchildren to live as we have, in a world of easy transportation and relitively cheap food.

I have no problem with them doing what they can to keep oil prices high from a "Global" perspective. Hell they are doing what is in thier best interests.

Why shouldn't we?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

So OPEC is worried about the price of oil and manipulating the production to get the prices up.. Not news but it does point out that we need a new source of power particularly transport fuels.

Pay no attention to propeller boy. He spends so much time being upset about other people being upset that he's become his own alternative energy source.

http://greenjersey.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/windpower.jpg

Even suplemental alternitive fuel sources will make a difference in Supply Demand pricing. T. Boone Pickens natual gas/ wind power ideas make a lot of sense to give us some control of OPEC's monoply powers, Maybe?

I'm with you on that, 100%.

Better yet is if we find a renewable source of fuels that don't cause the ecological damage of Corn for ethanol to the Gulf of Mexico, where fertilizer run off is causing a dead spot the size of Texas in the fishing grounds.

Anybody know of a crop that doesn't need lots of fertilizer or cultivation and can be grown on marginal land to produce fuel?

Oh hell that would be hemp, wouldn't it. Well we can't grow hemp, oh hell no that would cause us to not need to clearcut our forests for paper or wast our scarse water resources on cotton and how would the DEA be able to tell if it was Hemp or Marajuna?

We couldn't have that. We wouldn't want to develop a distributed production infrastructure for fuels production that would not make our farmers dependant on the fertilizer and seed companies.

That woud be Bad!

I recently posted a thread about the fact that we need to get ourselves weaned off the oil industry. Spiking prices through the roof is an easy way to drive people away from consuming oil, but it's also the least beneficial way, too. Skyrocketing oil prices drive up the prices of food and everything else. The way to beat this is to keep oil prices down while pursuing clean, renewable alternative fuels in much the same way they pursued the atomic bomb: you approach the oil situation like the Cuban Missile Crisis but with high oil prices at stake instead of nukes. We're way beyond the urgency of, say, the Manhattan Project.

Anyhoot, yeah, hemp is a damned good resource. That's worth overthrowing our government to make it legal to utilize hemp to its fullest useful extent, short of smoking it down our lungs. Even though the relationship between hemp and smoking pot is about as solid as legalizing swing dancing and the explosion of promiscuity.

Come to think of it, the damage done by legalizing pot would be far and away undone by the benefits of the mass utilization of hemp...

 

[JackLuis]

Pay no attention to propeller boy. He spends so much time being upset about other people being upset that he's become his own alternative energy source.

Come to think of it, the damage done by legalizing pot would be far and away undone by the benefits of the mass utilization of hemp...

Here in California they are trying to get the government to leagalize Hemp production. The relationship between Hemp, (which is very low in THC content and you'd have to smoke a bale of it to get high,) and Marajuana, (that is actually Sativa and the "good stuff") is only in the minds of the Government.

Several countries have allowed Hemp production, Canada has a leagle hemp market and they haven't been converted to a nation of 'stoners' too tripped out to make our cars.

There are several other crops that can provide the more oil/hecter to mix with petro desiel to make a dent in our Petrol consumption, but they need more cultivation and better land quality to grow well.

The key is to wean ourselves off gasoline and move to deisel powered cars so we can utilize the resourse more effecitetly. Gasoline was chosen for a fuel because it was a cheap by product and gas engines were cheaper to build than desiels.
Tansportation fuels are about 30% of our Perto usage and the easiest to effect the price of oil. There are no technological hurdles to jump to use vegetable sourced oils, we know how to do that. We know how to grow hemp, America did it for a century before rope began to be made from sisal and the market for hemp rope fell.

All we need is someone in Washington to decide to look at the facts instead of the propaganda and we can start the revolution.

What are the odds of that happening?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Here in California they are trying to get the government to leagalize Hemp production. The relationship between Hemp, (which is very low in THC content and you'd have to smoke a bale of it to get high,) and Marajuana, (that is actually Sativa and the "good stuff") is only in the minds of the Government.

And the propaga-er, marketing literature of whatever lobbyist whose boss stands to lose big money off the mass utilization of hemp.

Several countries have allowed Hemp production, Canada has a leagle hemp market and they haven't been converted to a nation of 'stoners' too tripped out to make our cars.

Yeah but hemp equals communism, so there!
(Wait, isn't forbidding its use closer to communism?)

There are several other crops that can provide the more oil/hecter to mix with petro desiel to make a dent in our Petrol consumption, but they need more cultivation and better land quality to grow well.

The key is to wean ourselves off gasoline and move to deisel powered cars so we can utilize the resourse more effecitetly. Gasoline was chosen for a fuel because it was a cheap by product and gas engines were cheaper to build than desiels.
Tansportation fuels are about 30% of our Perto usage and the easiest to effect the price of oil. There are no technological hurdles to jump to use vegetable sourced oils, we know how to do that. We know how to grow hemp, America did it for a century before rope began to be made from sisal and the market for hemp rope fell.

All we need is someone in Washington to decide to look at the facts instead of the propaganda and we can start the revolution.

What are the odds of that happening?

The odds are higher with Obama in office, but high enough? Time will tell. I'm not betting my house on it, though.

 

[wildehafer]

Raise oil prices?

Nice way to fuel the slip into world recession or worse.

Way to go!

Where does OPEC get off on all this? Bunch of greedy bastards. You'd think that with all the untold billions of dollars they have made from oil in the last few years they might have poured more of it into "investments" in finding more of even better, safe, clean alternatives.

OPEC seems to be like a dying animal, lashing out to preserve itself against the inevitable tide of alternative energy in a future world that doesn't need oil or the tyrannical grip of a small body of people that can dictate the fate of countries through a critical resource.

 

[JackLuis]

Raise oil prices?

Nice way to fuel the slip into world recession or worse.

QUOTE]

Saudi's are just trying to keep thier money flowing. They figure that $75/bbl is good enough that it won't cut into theri lifestyle. but $50 is too low to give them any rooom for savings.

What we need to do is figure out how to change the paradime and decrease our dependancy.
Will hemp cultivation do that? Hard to say but it is a lot better than standing around whining about those damn camel jockies.

Austraila has lesser problem, first they have a lower population and they are close to Indonesian sources of oil. But they too could benifit from the use of domesticly produced alternitive fuels and hemp does take lower water resources than other fuel crops. Tiis would be a major plus to them as they are in a drought.

They already have a pretty large hemp production base, although they tend not to use it to produce seeds. LOL

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Raise oil prices?

Nice way to fuel the slip into world recession or worse.

Way to go!

Where does OPEC get off on all this? Bunch of greedy bastards. You'd think that with all the untold billions of dollars they have made from oil in the last few years they might have poured more of it into "investments" in finding more of even better, safe, clean alternatives.

OPEC seems to be like a dying animal, lashing out to preserve itself against the inevitable tide of alternative energy in a future world that doesn't need oil or the tyrannical grip of a small body of people that can dictate the fate of countries through a critical resource.

It's funny how the same self proclaimed champions progress screech about how we can't fight the onward march of technology when it comes to killing American jobs, turn around and fight tooth and nail against progress when it comes to the moving beyond the oil industry.

I'm talking about folks like you, trysail, handprints, and amicus.

A dying animal indeed.

 

[wildehafer]

Australia is in a great position to harness solar, wind, tidal and now a recent development in crude made by algae that sit in bio reactor tanks and don't need much more than water, nutrients and sunlight.

Central Australia gets lots of sunlight. The oil produced by these reactors is so good it can almost be pumped directly into the pipelines to refineries. Additionally the oil produced is carbon neutral. It's already taken the carbon from the air which then gets released on combustion and then taken back up by the algae.

If only there is enough political will and vision to back the projects and get them off the ground we could be self sufficient in our energy needs. Same could be said for a number of other countries with the right environmental and political conditions.

I fear Australian political apathy will drive us to dependence on some other countries resources for the foreseeable future

 

[sr71plt]

And why shouldn't we try to keep the price of thier oil down?

Sounds fair to me but the cost of Oil is not only in our balance of payments debit it is in the ecological cost of not finding a renewable resource to allow our grandchildren to live as we have, in a world of easy transportation and relitively cheap food.

I have no problem with them doing what they can to keep oil prices high from a "Global" perspective. Hell they are doing what is in thier best interests.

Why shouldn't we?

We should, of course. I did not imply otherwise--I said I didn't think they were evil for making the most of their resources.

So, in light of your last paragraph, I don't see a disagreement here.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Australia is in a great position to harness solar, wind, tidal and now a recent development in crude made by algae that sit in bio reactor tanks and don't need much more than water, nutrients and sunlight.

Central Australia gets lots of sunlight. The oil produced by these reactors is so good it can almost be pumped directly into the pipelines to refineries. Additionally the oil produced is carbon neutral. It's already taken the carbon from the air which then gets released on combustion and then taken back up by the algae.

If only there is enough political will and vision to back the projects and get them off the ground we could be self sufficient in our energy needs. Same could be said for a number of other countries with the right environmental and political conditions.

I fear Australian political apathy will drive us to dependence on some other countries resources for the foreseeable future

There must be some recent bad gene that found its way into the human species that keeps us from doing the smart things in life.

Then there's the friggin Japanese. They have a kickass public transit system, bullet trains and 100mbps internet access for $50/month. What the fuck. If it isn't some bad gene, where did America go wrong?

 

[JackLuis]

, where did America go wrong?

Listening to Republicans maybe?

 

[incubus666]

Energy Independent? I doubt it any time in the near future even if we invested Billions of dollars annually.

How many gasoline powered cars do we have on the road today? How many Diesel trucks?. When will they age off?

T.Boone Pickens and his wind and natural gas idea.

#1 he wants the government to subsidize the wind power. Read you the tax payer. Then he will charge you the tax payer for the electricity he sells to you.

#2 His ideas about natural gas for cars. It will cost each and every car owner a couple of Thousands of dollars to convert their cars. T.Boone also has huge investments in natural gas so he will make money off of that.

The U.S. has enormous natural gas reserves that we can't drill for so we must import it from other countries.

Many complain drilling for oil and gas solves nothing. Wrong. Today we import 10-12 million bbl.s of oil from other countries and pay them about $40 a bbl. So $40 X 10,000,000=400,000,000 dollars per day that go to other countries many who do not like us and a bunch who hate us.

How about in 5 years we produce 25% of our own oil and a $100,000,000 per day goes to American companies that pay taxes on that money. Dollars that enrich America instead of Saudi Arabia and Hugo Chaveze. Those additional taxes could pay for investments in alternative energy research and development. Then in another five years another $100,000,000 a day back in to America's economy. Wash, lather, repeat.

Everyone complains about the giant corporations that refuse to to invest in alternative energy. Why do you think that is? Could it be that is not feasible today. Feasible as to make money.

Lets assume you electric co. offered you the choice of going "green" and all of your electricity would come only from "green" sources but the price would double.

How many of you would elect to take the "green" alternative?

Today alternative energy costs at a minimun of 4 to 8 times as much as today oil/natural gas energy energy.

It is one or the other, it is a need for a combination of all. Natural gas is the most likely if we are allowed to drill for it. Oil is needed to maintain what we have today.

Wind and solar energy? Yeah right. The conservationests are already filing suits deploring bird kills by the wind turbines and the loss of habitate for solar collectors. The BLM has just shut down a test solar test genreation facility in the southwest in the interest of the envirmont.

It's a damned if you do and a damned if you don't situation.

Just as an aside the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has several thousand dollars in stock of T.Boone's companies and the U.S. Senate Majority leader recently added an amendment to a bill that would not allow drilling for natural gas in some of the richest natural gas areas of western America. All the while we are importing natural gas from other countries. The speaker of the House also recently announced that her job was to save the world. WTF am I just dumb or an I wrong. I thought her job was to represent her district and to help make America strong.

I very much doubt we will ever become "Energy Independent" But with some reason I believe we can be a lot less energy dependent.

Mke S.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Listening to Republicans maybe?

May we never make that mistake again.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Let 'em set it wherever they want. Its their oil.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Let 'em set it wherever they want. Its their oil.

And if they do, I hope it's your employer that's the next to get driven out of business, so you get to burn gasoline driving all over the city for months looking for work.