Current Oil Price

Post by **clv101** » 12 Dec 2007, 13:50

I'm expecting a serious recession in the US in 2008 - in today's dollar oil is coming down.

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 12 Dec 2007, 15:23

Oil price seems to have a rocket under it just at the minute . . .

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 12 Dec 2007, 15:47

Plunging dollar driving prices. Latest US stocks report was steady as she goes. That said, the market has been totally unpredictable in recent weeks. (at least by me).

Post by **mikepepler** » 12 Dec 2007, 17:02

Several stories from TOD today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyN ... 3120071211

Largest oil terminal shut at NYMEX oil delivery hub

NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The largest crude oil terminal at the delivery point for NYMEX crude oil futures at Cushing, Oklahoma, and two major pipelines at the hub were still shut Tuesday after an ice storm hit the area Monday, a spokesman for the terminal said.

Enbridge Energy Partners LP's 16.7 million barrel crude oil terminal and the Spearhead and Ozark crude oil pipelines operated by parent company Enbridge Inc were shut Monday, Enbridge spokesman Larry Springer said.

"They went down about 1:00 (Central Time)," said Springer.
...
Springer said that the crude oil terminal at the Cushing was also closed due to power outages.
...
Three oil products terminals on the Magellan pipeline were also shut Monday by the storm.

Nothing permanent, but perhaps it will make another dent in US crude stocks next week, and help to keep the price up?

Other oil related news, that doesn't directly affect supply:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7140645.stm

Thousands of tonnes of oil have spilled into the North Sea during the loading of a tanker off Norway, the oil company StatoilHydro has said.
...
Mr Stokset said the cause of the spill was not immediately known, but loading had been stopped immediately and production had not been affected.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/allBreaki ... 11?rpc=401&

Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro has suspended helicopter flights to some of its main fields in the North Sea due to Russian navy exercises in nearby international waters, the company said on Tuesday.

StatoilHydro, one of Europe's biggest oil groups, said the disruptions would not affect production levels at the fields, including the Troll field -- the biggest production area of offshore Norway.
...

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 12 Dec 2007, 19:31

Ticker $93.56

Seems a rapid increase today......

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 12 Dec 2007, 20:04

$94.50 I take it the big spenders are buying oil again?

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 13 Dec 2007, 12:53

Tapis spot crude over $100 (again!)

http://www.upstreamonline.com/market_da ... kets_crude

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 13 Dec 2007, 13:15

The governments decided to throw cash at banks so they could continue fuelling the consumer-debt-economy. That means inflation is preferred to recession, which means that oil markets no longer need to be so fearful of demand falling...

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 13 Dec 2007, 20:38

That is a very interesting statement Tess. Do you know that to be the situation or is it your conclusion?

The implications are, that there might be an attempt to inflate out of the debt problems, ie general inflation goes up to (say) 10 or 12%, then wages follow, then debts start to shrink. The nigger in the woodpile is that interest rates will shoot up too, so anybody with variable debts will suffer. People with no debts or fixed rate debts will very definately gain.

I am sure there is lots more to this choice, but I think that is the basics of it. So oil is going to continue its inexorable climb?

It is my expectation that inflation will go up above 10% and interest rates will follow as the recession occurs. 2008 is going to be a transition year - recession will take hold and people will start to feel financial pain. There will be worse to come. Don't forget things will keep going downhill until there is a paradigm shift into a different way of running the economy.

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 13 Dec 2007, 22:46

The trick these days seems to be that as a government you redefine inflation to exclude all the things whose prices go up the most, such as housing and energy... You can have much higher inflation in an economy if the parts that are bearing the brunt of the inflation are carefully left out of the calculation. Otherwise you'd have to do awful things like raise interest rates to cut housing prices or energy use. You've gotta give the globalisers and neo-cons their due. In the old days an over-inflated economy would be doomed to bust and recession. Now its the developing countries that bail us out by lending us the money to carry on consuming while providing cheap labour to keep the costs under control. Absolute genius, if it was sustainable.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 13 Dec 2007, 23:33

Yes, well said - good summary.

But it is not sustainable - so what next? Yes I know it is the $64,000 question.

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 14 Dec 2007, 09:27

snow hope wrote:Yes, well said - good summary.

But it is not sustainable - so what next? Yes I know it is the $64,000 question.

Well it is obviously not sustainable in a long term, but my guess is that it might just look like a trick that has a few years life left in it. There is a lot of momentum in the BAU trajectory, and the third world could probably soak up quite a lot more pain on our behalf - after all much of Africa and S.America is still okay-ish and could be made to chase the western dream by providing us with more cheap labour and absorbing our dirt for a decade or more yet.
If you were a conventional politician with a hand (one of many) on the steering wheel, it might look like a sensible course while you figure out what the heck to do - with luck it might even become SEP (someone else's problem). After all you probably wouldn't want to be known as the person on whose watch the crash occured.

That is if you were a conventional politician. If you were a politician sitting with us here in the back seat watching in horror the scene unfolding through the windscreen you might decide that the time had come to either fling open to doors and bail out, or to try a wrest control of the vehicle from the nutters in the front.

Silas · Post by **Silas** » 14 Dec 2007, 09:33

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KJh0pDMnL8M

Its all peththethethethe butros butros gallie to me, I'll get me coat:lol:

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 27 Dec 2007, 17:42

Tapis is $101 and Louisiana over $100 for the first time, both
spot prices. WTI over $97 (on Yahoo, only $96 on this page).

Another bullish inventory report. Will this one simmer and grow, or have we seen the peak for 2007?

http://www.upstreamonline.com/market_da ... kets_crude

Post by **mikepepler** » 28 Dec 2007, 21:21

Also, with the pound down against the dollar, this week has seen some new highs in ?/barrel prices. If they stay up, and sterling stays down, I'd expect to see a couple more pence per litre on fuel within 2 weeks.