#OT# More BS on oil supplies

The US oil industry continues to [try to cook] their books. It just reported a large *DROP* [3.5 million bbls] in the amount of crude oil on hand.

Setting up the US consumer for another 4.00$/gal gas sucker punch?

Does anyone know if the Strategic Oil Reserve is being expanded/replenished with the big drop in oil prices?

When do we start sending some of these people [government & industry] to prison?

================= U.S. crude oil stocks drop unexpectedly: EIA Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:20pm EST By Haitham Haddadin

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude stocks posted a surprise drop last week, government data showed on Wednesday, and analysts cited higher refinery operations and disruptions to imports due to fog on the Gulf Coast.

However, the Energy Information Administration report also showed another build in crude inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, which logged a 1.2 million barrel build week to a record 28.7 million barrels. This followed a 4.7 million barrel build the prior week at the NYMEX delivery point for physical barrels.

Total commercial stockpiles of crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 3.1 million barrels to 318.2 million in the week to December 19, compared with average analysts' estimates for a build of 400,0000 barrels.

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Reply to
F. George McDuffee
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I cannot see what is so criminal about maintaining a low inventory of oil.

i

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Reply to
Ignoramus20148

Thats called "Just in time" No?

Manufacturing lives by JIT

Gunner

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Reply to
Gunner Asch

============== There is a not-so-fine line between minimizing your inventory costs and manipulating the market by creating an artificial shortage [again].

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

The not so fine line is delineated by the word "collusion".

Reply to
Ignoramus30542

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I wonder how much of this is due to Exxon reporting a drop in crude production the last reporting quarter (when crude was still quite high). They made the report without comment (meaning they didn't say if some portions of their mature wells and stripper wells are off line).

It did get the attention of some Exxon stock holders who worry about market cap.....

Matt

Reply to
matthew maguire

I'd like to know when a quart of motor oil is going to drop in price.

Wes

Reply to
Wes

Which "artificial shortage" did the oil companies create?

Ill be waiting

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

40 yrs of Democrat attempts to prove "collusion" still havent found any.

Do you have information that the DNC doesnt have? Please pass it along to them

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

I do not see any criminality in the aforementioned story.

Reply to
Ignoramus804

A drum? Make sure you're well armed!

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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That's ridiculous! Bush has absolutely NOTHING to do with oil prices. Those prices are controlled by the producers and the speculators. I suppose that you will expect Yomma Obama to drop the proce of oil immediately upon inauguration, using your reasoning. Carter wasn't an oil man and the prices went up under his administration, and Bush wasn't even IN politics at the time.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Chandler

neither has 40 yrs of Democrat investigation.

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

I know. I was preaching to the choir. :)

The thing is that I forgot to add the punch line when I got back to my desk:

With more than your little 'Acme Anti-anvil Umbrella'.

It stinks to have to be running to the bathroom every ten minutes. :(

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

California Electricity Crisis.

Energy companies, led by Enron.

Reply to
kurgan

Most electricty in California is created by hydroelectric generation.

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner Asch

---------------- Good point, although Gunner appears to be correct on the actual generation power sources.

The state bonds and extortionate contracts issued for the "emergency" electrical power as the result of Enron, et al, are in no small way responsible for the current California budget crisis and crushing tax/utility loads.

Other examples are the market run-ups and crashes in basic food items leading to malnutrition/famine worldwide, and very considerable agricultural sector dislocation in the US and other producing countries.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

It's much more complicated, although some of the principles are the same. Some time spent reading the news and industry sources on oil indicates that we're in a state known as "contango" in the commodities business, in which year-ahead futures prices, now running $14 more per barrel for Feb. 2010 delivery than for Feb 2009 delivery, are high because oil's price is expected to climb, and everyone is stockpiling oil in anticipation of making more on it at some time in the future. The world's storage facilities are apparently nearly topped up. The less-than-1% drawdown in US stockpiles of crude this past month apparently is the result of some weather-related delivery problems, and means practically nothing, anyway. Our stockpiles of gasoline and other oil products have been increasing steadily.

Bush did not draw upon the SPR during the price runup last summer, and has not drawn upon it since. I didn't look to see what the estimated size or percentage of capacity is but it hasn't changed.

Oil analysts are expecting price increases in oil to lag behind demand, because of all the stockpiling going on now. As for the increase in demand that's expected ahead, it's an unknown but estimates range from a few months to two years before we return to the peak.

From what the traders are saying, there isn't enough publicly available data to predict much about oil prices, except that they will eventually go up if for no other reason than production projects are being halted and will take a few years to wind back up. Canada's oil-sand production is at break-even with $40/barrel oil and that's well below what they need to pay for expansions, so there will be no expansions. The projects already halted will hold down production for five years, according to Canadian government analysts. Gas drilling is being halted around the world for the same reason.

But SUV/light-truck sales have inched up from 45% of total vehicle sales to

49%, so we'll screw ourselves again soon, either way. Foreign oil producers were getting $700 billion/year from us not long ago. They know we're too knuckleheaded to impose a big gasoline tax, so the Russians, Iranians, and Venezuelans are counting on us to come through for them, once again.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

And where would that big gasoline tax go pray tell?

Wes

Reply to
Wes

That's hard to say Wes but it could be used to keep your kids from having to pay off every dime of the trillions of dollars being borrowed to do something to keep you in your job today. There is five hundred trillion dollars or more in the system that is going to have to be bled out over time and that's a lot of money by anyones standards.

Personally, I'd roll out a graduated tax on autogas tomorrow. You could index it to some group of economic indicators so that until those indicators are strong enough the tax would be zero and exempt commercial vehicles in the long haul/LTL industries permanently.

You can't tax oil directly but you can target a tax that will produce the specific desired result without much trouble at all. Especially in the age of computerized pumps. In a healthy economy you wouldn't see gas below five dollars per gallon if I had my way.

The people that fear such a thing most aren't American consumers Wes. It's the producers that are scared to death oif such a thing and rightfully so. We'd be declaring economic war on them and it's the war Bush should have declared instead of the mess he created instead.

JC

Reply to
John R. Carroll

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