Campground Cattle":234y5mag said:
Oil is a commodities Market and the traders are driving prices to the moon through speculation. Also several major events occured in the US industry in the last year that pulled refined product reserves to an all time low. New Epa regulations on clean fuels are kicking in also. Today diesel has a spec of 500 ppm sulphur in 06 it has to go to 15 ppm sulphur. This will cut production capacity in my refinery by 40,000 barrels per day that is 1,680,000 gallons of diesel a day that will no longer be on the market. That is what regulations are doing to supplies, refiner's are not building new units to increase capacity due to all the regulations . Know its time to pay the piper we have to get demand below 12MM BPD or increase refinig capacity we can not have our cake and eat it to any longer.
I think you've made my point about greed. The new specs for sulphur won't go into effect until '06, you're charging us for them today. You've known they were coming for five, six years. Why are we suddenly now paying for them. Plus, just as surely as the grass is turning green, you know as well as I do those requirements will be revoked or pushed back in '06. So you'll be producing that 40,000 barrels per day and charging more for it
for no reason except greed.
NEW YORK--Oil prices soared to fresh all-time highs Friday, underpinned by worries about US refining capacity and building on gains caused by a study raising the possibility of 100-dollar per barrel oil.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, jumped to an all-time closing high of 57.25 dollars a barrel, up 1.87 from Thursday's close.
Prices hit an all-time intraday high of 57.70 dollars in afternoon trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
London's Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in May surged 2.22 dollars to a new record high of 56.51 dollars a barrel, topping the March 17 record of 56.15 dollars.
Oil prices, underpinned in recent days by worries about a lack of US refining capacity and a Goldman Sachs study that forecast crude could top 100 dollars per barrel, got a further lift from news of a shutdown at Venezuela's Paraguana refinery, the largest in the world, due to electrical problems.
What if the Goldman Sachs study had said crude would drop to $15? Just because someone produces a study doesn't make it the truth. When George HW Bush was president, crude oil prices were $12 a barrel. I don't remember the year, but let's say 15 years ago. Independent producers in OK published an open letter to Bush in all the major newspapers in the US asking him to put a tax on imported crude to get it to $15 a barrel. They could make money at $15 a barrel. He didn't do it and many of the small independents in this area went out of business. Yes 15 years is a long time; but $15 is a long way from $100. I'll repeat this: there's no shortage of oil. There's no shortage of gasoline. The prices we're seeing are unwarranted. In past years when gasoline prices took an unwarranted spike, someone in Congress would stand up and threaten an investigation. And, lo and behold, prices would go down. Not back to where they started, of course, they'd keep a few cents of the increase. But there's no one today that's going to stand up for the American people.
"The market is particularly sensitive to supply disruptions," said Marshall Steeves, analyst at Refco. But he added that the rally is also being pumped up by "very strong speculation" that amplifies price movements.
So we're charged just in case there's a supply disruption. Then if it's not disrupted, and it's likely not, they just pocket the extra money and keep the higher prices in place. Greed.
A jump in gasoline prices, which hit a record 1.731 dollars a gallon in futures trading, also put pressure on the overall market.
"The market is being pushed up by very, very strong [refined] product markets," Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish said. "There are real concerns about product availability, that's what is underpinning the strength of the market at the moment."
"strong product markets" not strong demand. There's a difference.
Despite the fact that the United States has rising levels of crude stockpiles, there are fears that refineries will be unable to turn it into gasoline quickly enough ahead of the country's so-called "summer driving season" that begins next month.
As I said, there's no shortage of crude oil.
"The lack of refining capacities is ultimately the bottom line," Norrish added.
Highlighting the refinery problems, analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm noted that US oil major ChevronTexaco was forced to shut the crude distillation unit at its 210,000-barrels per day Pembroke refinery in Wales last Friday.
Manure. Am I the only person on this board who remembers California's electricity shortage a few years ago? They had rolling blackouts, utility bills jumped. One reason, they claimed, was that a power plant was offline for maintenance. After the crash (which cost some of my family the majority of their retirement money), we found out the market was being maniupulated. That plant was offline to help the energy producers charge more for their product, not because it needed maintenance. And we heard the tapes of the traders laughing about "Aunt Maude" having to sell her car to pay her bill. It was unbridled greed and it's happening again.
"The refinery is a major exporter of gasoline to the United States," they said.
Jason Schenker at Wachovia Securities said the high profits in gasoline bring in speculators who can cash in from buying crude oil.
But he said another factor was the Goldman Sachs report on Thursday, which raised the possibility of a "superspike" in crude oil to as high as 105 dollars a barrel.
Schenker dismissed the projection as unlikely, saying, "It is possible to reach 105 dollars a barrel, but in my opinion it would take a cataclysmic terrorism attack on infrastructure to get there. I don't think we will trend up to 105."
As a result, Schenker said, the rally could be vulnerable to a correction.
"If this rally is driven by a published article [from Goldman Sachs] and some irrational exuberance we might anticipation some downside next week," he said.
Oil prices were being supported also by supply worries ahead of a likely strike by energy workers in Nigeria, Africa's biggest exporter of crude.
Nigerian oil unions said Wednesday that it would take a miracle to avert a nationwide strike as talks with government and energy majors on working conditions broke down. A three-day "warning strike" was due to begin April 11.
World oil prices have now more than doubled since early 2002.
Adjusted for inflation, however, they remain far below levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged to upwards of 80 dollars a barrel in today's money.
Last year when gasoline first started taking this jump, an oil executive from, I think BP was quoted as saying, in effect, Americans have been getting a free ride for years. That we should have been paying $2 for gasoline a long time ago. Don't try to tell me, CC, that these prices are justified. It's not true; and you should be ashamed of yourself for telling your friends on this board that it is.
