Saudi Arabia Opens Fields Before Plan, Lifts Capacity

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=afVKCANjQJ_0&refer=home

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has started pumping at two new fields three months ahead of schedule and may delay the shutdown of older wells to ease concern of a lack of capacity to supply oil.

The development of the offshore Abu Safah oil fields and the mostly onshore Qatif fields may boost the nation's output capacity by 800,000 barrels a day, or 8 percent, when full commissioning is completed in as long as three months, said spokesmen for state- owned Saudi Aramco in Dhahran.

Crude oil prices slid after reaching a record $44.34 a barrel in New York, as the Saudi statement helped ease concern about OPEC's ability to meet surging demand. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al- Naimi on June 30 said his nation will take steps to prevent rising prices from damaging the world economy.

``It's significant that the Saudis are reassuring the market that the capacity situation can be addressed,'' said Ann-Louise Hittle, an oil analyst at Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. in Edinburgh. ``It will help within the next few months because it widens out the spare capacity margin. In the meantime, the market is worried that if a supply disruption occurs, the margin is very low.''

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If they pump some more water in them old wells they might get the crap at the bottom.
The race is on to keep up with global demand....stay tuned.

The price of crude has gone higher than it's ever been, yet the price of gas here in San Diego is cheaper than it's been in months.

The reports that the oil companies have made record profits cause one to believe that perhaps we may be getting screwed. It becomes very questionable when the price of crude continues to rise but the price of gas falls.

I wonder which section of Bush's Energy Plan dictated to the gas producers that they were to continually lower prices to the public regardless of the cost of crude. This would give the impression that the country was on the right track & Bush was the bestest greatestest pretzeldent ever!!

Maybe the Saudi surprise doesn't have anything to do with the Saudis at all. Perhaps it's a ploy that was developed years ago to aid the shrub in getting reselected.

:tinfoilhat:

A mutually, co-enabling relationship. Each needs the other to survive.

Someday, we will all understand how this corrupt relationship brought down this country.

Prince Bandir?

Wait until heating oil season in the Northeast. Can you say $2.50 a gallong for heating oil? Get your firewood now.

I'll believe this when I see the tankers leaving. This could very well be another attempt to just talk the price down.

All the petroleum industry reports I've read recently indicate they are pumping to capacity, and don't have much hope of increasing it. I'd be mighty surprised if they were actually capable of pulling a rabbit out of their hat to dramatically increase production like this.

Sincerely, Bandar (Bush)

note to bushco: before you are booted out of office, bilk more consumers, hasten peak oil, develop no new conservation methods.

who's YOUR daddy?

If I were Harvey Keitel, I'd be giving the al Saud the following advice: "Well, let's not start sucking each others' dicks just yet."

A first blush it might seem like good news that the Saudis are ramping up even more production.

But oil is a finite resource. The more you pump and use easy to extract oil today, the less there will be for tomorrow.

The more dependent the Chinese, the US, Europe, etc. become on Middle East oil, the more we put ourselves in a very bad situation for the day when supply cannot meet demand or when supply actually dwindles.

Furthermore. there are indications that the Saudis are not being truthful about their supply. At my web site, www.earthside.com over the last couple of days I have linked to numerous articles that say the Ghawar field may very well be past the peak of production. Yesterday, in a BBC report, the president of Opec said that they were pumping flat out and that there was not anymore excess capacity.

I think you can look at $65 a barrel oil by November.

Sounds like the metaphor of a stretched rubber band could be applied here.

In other words, we should be seeing a "snap-back" of epic proportions, when "the time is right".

Which means "after the election".

If Bush wins, it won't matter. If Kerry wins, he'll get the blame.

The Smart Money says: invest in Schwinn.

--bkl