With the negotiations on Greek austerity going largely Germany's way, it looks like markets are anticipating further reduction in oil demand and prices are now well below $59 again.
I have seen reports that US gas guzzler SUV trucks are selling like hot cakes once a gain and the US VMT (vehicles miles travelled) are rising sharply once more. So the US as least is doing its bit to bring supply and demand back in balance, but the oil market has a strong herd mentality, and reduced drilling will not curtain production for a few more months, and it will take a few more months for the statistics to catch up with reality and filter through the MSM to the trader's ears.
In the mean time, cheap oil is filtering through into cheaper everything, and the feelgood factor is back one more time at least in the UK and there is a glint in the shopkeepers eyes that finally the long recession has turned around.
I am installing a more efficient oil boiler this month, and my formal employment ends a month today, so I am as usual doing the opposite of the market, and I know it is the right thing to do.
PS_RalphW wrote:it will take a few more months for the statistics to catch up with reality and filter through the MSM to the trader's ears.
It certainly takes a while for the supply & demand stats to catch up, but actually the key number for me has always been to watch the physical buyers of crude oil (ie the refiners). If refiners are actually buying crude for immediate use (rather than dumping it into storage for later) then it's a big hint towards rising prices. MSM are always taken with an enormous pinch of salt!
I am installing a more efficient oil boiler this month, and my formal employment ends a month today, so I am as usual doing the opposite of the market, and I know it is the right thing to do.
I am installing a more efficient oil boiler this month, and my formal employment ends a month today, so I am as usual doing the opposite of the market, and I know it is the right thing to do.
Very wise. Insulates you from future turbulence in prices. Could you stretch to a wood-burning stove too?
House came with two! One is not much cop but the larger one is in daily use.
It's a big improvement on the open fire that has been heating the house for the last 350 ish years. However, house is 2 1/2 times bigger than when it was first built.
Even though many costs for me have come down, I'm carrying on as I've done from the past 6 years or so. Just means I'll have a bit more left over at the end of each month, which might come in handy if everything starts going up in the next year or so.
In a sign that the oil price plunge is really beginning to bite, yesterday oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced that the company is indefinitely postponing plans to develop a new tar sands mine in northern Alberta.
The Pierre River Mine is the largest tar sands project to be shelved so far and its postponement will be seen as a major blow to the tar sands industry.
It comes hot on the heels of announcements by Total and Statoil to also delay projects, and Shell’s decision to lay off 300 workers last month from its Albian Sands bitumen project. That amounted to 10 per cent of Shell’s tar sands workforce.
All good stuff. These events, coupled with the fuel quality directive, may help suppress CO2 emissions slightly. Not that it makes that much difference at this late stage.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
The Brent/WTI spread is now $11.50. That is getting silly money again and gives more evidence of a local glut of high condensate oil in the US whilst the rest of the world is returning closer to balance between supply and demand.
Sooner or later Obama is going to allow the export of US oil, or the shale industry is going to be history.
PS_RalphW wrote:I have seen reports that US gas guzzler SUV trucks are selling like hot cakes once a gain and the US VMT (vehicles miles travelled) are rising sharply once more. So the US as least is doing its bit to bring supply and demand back in balance
And the European manufacturers are hoping for the same.
Europeans are currently dumping their hatchbacks and sedans and buying SUVs, and once you get past the supercars, the show here will be dominated by these practical, go-anywhere vehicles.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
biffvernon wrote:The shale industry is going to be history.
Unless it's deemed too big to fail, a strategic asset and gets $10bns bail out... like the car companies, like the banks etc.
The shale oil / fracking industry will do just fine once conventional crude shows serious declines. No subsidies required, though gladly accepted if offered. .