Oil Futures Keep Rising

Oil futures raced to another all-time high on the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday as traders continued to focus on concerns that worldwide supply pressures are unlikely to ease.

Crude oil for September delivery was recently trading up 5 cents to $44.20 a barrel after touching $44.28 earlier -- a new high for the 21-year-old contract. Oil is up more than a third from a year ago and has spent most of the past month above $40.

The latest spike has come amid generally dour communication from OPEC, which previously pledged to increase oil output to meet demand that could be as much as 2 million barrels-a-day higher this year than it was in 2003. On Tuesday, news organizations quoted OPEC's president warning that Saudi Arabia would be unable to add significant supply to the world market in the near term.

The country previously pledged it would boost supplies to 9.5 million barrels a day in July.
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http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/energy/10176348.html

Is there a possibility of manipulation for advantage going on ?

Abundant energy is the single most important factor in our quality of life. All through the south energy keeps our air conditioners running; all through north, it keeps our furnaces burning. Our food grows because of ample fertilizer – which requires energy to make – and is harvested with fuel in the combines and tractors. The trucks and trains that get the food to us before it rots all require fuel to run. We get to our jobs, whether by train or by car, because of readily available energy. We can regularly see our families whether they are across town or across the country because of the readily available energy in gasoline and jet fuel. The advanced equipment in our hospitals all require ample energy, and the ability to get to those hospitals quickly requires energy for the ambulances and the helicopters. The computers we use to communicate, the televisions we watch, the radios we listen to, the military that protects us abroad and the police that protect us at home all require energy. Without abundant energy we would not have the lives we have today. Imagine for a moment we didn’t have access to that abundant energy. Our very society would crumble… our lives would be shortened, in many cases ending in famine and disease. This energy comes in many forms: nuclear energy, coal energy, natural gas, and oil. They are all important. Yes, solar, wind, and other “renewable” sources also help, but currently they are but a small amount of our energy. If this were easy to change it would be so. The fact is, for many things, there is no alternative that is as cost effective and abundant. How, for instance, can an airplane jet engine run without fuel? Maybe someday there will be an alternative, but this is many years down the road. It will take many years and trillions of dollars to replace the entire petroleum based transportation infrastructure. When we talk about freedom, we usually think of speech or religion, but on a daily basis, our most essential freedom is the ability to move around – to drive to the store, to see our friends and family, to go to the job of our choosing and still live in a home of our choosing.

Why am writing this? As Americans we have an unbelievably important choice to make this November. For as long as the Democrats even pay lip service to the very groups that would limit our supplies of energy they do not deserve our vote. As long as they listen to the groups that would not justify a foreign war to secure the most important region in the world in terms of oil, they do not deserve our vote. Simply put, it is too dangerous to put our individual lives and the future of our very society in the hands of those who don’t understand the importance of abundant energy. There are many people who will vote for the Democrats for good reasons – many of us can reach opposite opinions on many of the issues debated in America today. All but a very small and dangerous minority, however, should realize that we must overlook these differences until the Democrats can walk away from these dangerous fringe elements. For the sake of our very quality of life we cannot take a chance with John Kerry and his ultra-liberal environmentalist friends.

Anybody with 1/2 a brain would agree with you, including John Kerry.
> Kerry is not that stupid and is not a liberal (even if liberals would
> hope him to be). Intelligent liberals/conservatives would not debate
> this argument on your premise. but, there is ground to debate "Maybe
> someday there will be an alternative, but this is many years down the
> road.". This is very true, but like most issues, it's not black and
> white. We all know it's down the road, but we can make a difference on
> how down the road, down the road is. This is not to say petroleum
> will ever go away as a major resource. It's all about degree. What
> worries people (maybe called liberal, I don't know) is the possibility
> that the oil industry might have a lock on energy it's self. And,
> therefore try to hinder the ambitions of capitalistic large scale
> alternative energy markets. I don't know how true this is, but it
> worries some people. I think it would be a good idea for the
> government to start now, to make our country more alternative energy
> friendly, for the free market to have a chance against a virtual
> energy oil monopoly (if it exists).

Jay,

My point isn't whether John Kerry personally believes this or not...
and I agree, most people would have to accept what I'm saying as true.
However, many people don't realize that every time they make an
environmental choice, or an anti-war choice, or many other choices,
there is an implicit counter-choice they are making against all the
forms of modern energy that we depend on. Drilling in Alaska is but
one example. The point is that Kerry, because his party gives credence
to this view, (by going against the president's energy bill, for
instance), shouldn't be trusted in the long term to make sure our
country has access to these fossil fuels.

Would Kerry open up alaskan oil fields or off shore drilling if oil
continues to stay above $40 or even $50 per barrel? It's essential to
the American economy that this happens.

I would like to address your point about a "lock on energy." The fact
that we tax fossil fuels so much and that the price of oil is higher
than it would be if left to a truly open market (thanks to OPEC) should
provide plenty of incentive to invest in alternate fuels. In other
words, the market would make the needed investments if it were cost
effective to do so... and the taxes and policies we have around fossil
fuels already inflate this incentive beyond what it would be without
government policy. I just don't see how a case can be made that
government is blocking this type of investment. And finally, the EU
is approximately as big as the United States (economically), Japan and
the EU have a far great dependence on oil from 'volatile regions', and
China has a strong vested interest in future energy sources - my point
being, why does our country need to be the one that does all of this
investment in new sources of energy?

Ask him/her why they lied about the reason to conquer Iraq.

...it's panic time. And "your friend" could not be more tragically wrong.

This is probably not yet the absolute peak, ASPO (http://www.peakoil.net/ discussions and news http://www.peakoil.com) predicts that in 2008, give or take.

This is flatout, confirmed by OPEC that it can't increase production - at least on short term, and there are growing suspicions that Saudis can't deliver what their promise even on medium and long term.

While the production stays flat and demand keeps increasing in a tight market, that means supply don't meet demand, the real crunch coming this autumn. This means the same as Peak Oil, for all practical and market purposes.

(PS: EU and Japan have been investing by various means in new energy sources many times more than US and are much less dependent on oil than US, while admittedly more dependent on imported oil.)

for those of us who are better off, and for the rest of us, being drafted to fight endless wars and conflicts, a militaristic, repressive society (because one follows the other), an increasing divide between the haves and have nots, and finally, after not so long, an end to "abundant and cheap energy" even for the Republican elite.

I would like to see your neocon "friend's" argument on every Sunday morning talk show, every PBS special, every talk radio station in our still democratic, freedom-loving, Enlightenment-based country -- let's have that debate.

Competition's two sides...on production side it pushes prices down by finding cheaper sources of material and labor (as in jobs gone south & off-shoring), and minimizing surplus (unprofitable, if not costly) capacity, but on the consumption side it pushes prices up by raising demand on limited commodities.

Now I appreciate how understanding something means considering all the possibilities, so...


On the one hand...the trouble in corporate Russian energy is an opportunity...the fake BushCo miracle of lowering fuel prices about mid-October won't be profitable for the House of Saud unless the price only falls back to "normal."

On the otherhand, nah, there is no otherhand...

When the story came up here, about a week or so ago, about how OPEC was going to increase production by 10%, I sort of semi-predicted that this would mean that the oil price would drop to $30 - $35 a barrel.

As usual the price goes in completely the opposite direction.

Still batting .000 for my predictions. I do so hate to break up a good losing streak.

:silly:

to make people think oil was going down so they would sell off, then the big wigs would buy up oil futures and make a killing when people realized what was going on. Part of me thinks that's to cynical, but the other part of me wonders what is even more evil that I'm not seeing in this story.

...already happenin'
Humans claim superiority due to a logical thought process.
When threatened that process is immediately superceded by good ol' primeval "fight or flight".

Ever see an animal defend it's young , it's territory, it's life ?

As to this particular debate.....it seems simple to me.

Alternative energy development:
BUSH - Snowball in hell
KERRY - What ya got ?