maximax's Comments RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.comuser/107951/comments http://seekingalpha.com/article/101108-whither-canada-s-tar-sands?source=feed#comment-288417 288417 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:25:34 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/95949-analyst-oil-prices-inflated-by-50?source=feed#comment-257067 257067 Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:14:43 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/93732-should-we-listen-to-boone-pickens-on-oil?source=feed#comment-244504 244504 Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:08:31 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/91725-just-a-commodities-correction-not-the-end-of-the-bull-part-2?source=feed#comment-234538 234538
"According to Merrill Lynch, oil demand growth in the emerging markets has never contracted year-over-year in the modern era." - comments like these kill it for me. So you are writing about oil but do not even seem to have access to consumption stats, you seem to be merely quoting the conclusion of others. That won't go far in the shady sector of oil... and you get it wrong in saying that consumption increases have all been from the developing world. the big consumption jump of 2004 was led by China, but the US came to a rather close 2nd. But the main theme of the article, commodities are just pulling back and will resume, sounds reasonable to me, for oil that is. However that oil pullback could now last a bit longer than the 3-6 months I personally had expected, unless political events necessitate a strong rebound. ]]> Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:38:10 -0400
"According to Merrill Lynch, oil demand growth in the emerging markets has never contracted year-over-year in the modern era." - comments like these kill it for me. So you are writing about oil but do not even seem to have access to consumption stats, you seem to be merely quoting the conclusion of others. That won't go far in the shady sector of oil... and you get it wrong in saying that consumption increases have all been from the developing world. the big consumption jump of 2004 was led by China, but the US came to a rather close 2nd. But the main theme of the article, commodities are just pulling back and will resume, sounds reasonable to me, for oil that is. However that oil pullback could now last a bit longer than the 3-6 months I personally had expected, unless political events necessitate a strong rebound. ]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/90660-will-american-changes-in-energy-consumption-stick?source=feed#comment-229137 229137 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:51:19 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/90369-oil-does-supply-and-demand-still-apply?source=feed#comment-228433 228433 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:27:19 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/90215-the-crude-reality?source=feed#comment-227522 227522 Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:05:49 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/90003-getting-more-constructive-on-crude-oil?source=feed#comment-226241 226241 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:22:10 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/88597-investing-in-tankers-ship-ship-hooray?source=feed#comment-225738 225738 Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:33:08 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/89937-the-energy-follies?source=feed#comment-225729 225729
"I'm all for moving off of fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change, but for the time being we are kind of stuck using them...", so let's keep on drilling. 10-15 yrs until production on OCS/ANWR. For how long do you think we will be stuck with fossil fuels/when do you think alternatives will, well, work?

This is an investor's website. Is it? Is it rather an outlet for interest groups in disguise? This article is irrelevant to investors, it would be fine for a personal blog, but here it is misplaced.]]> Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:48:27 -0400
"I'm all for moving off of fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change, but for the time being we are kind of stuck using them...", so let's keep on drilling. 10-15 yrs until production on OCS/ANWR. For how long do you think we will be stuck with fossil fuels/when do you think alternatives will, well, work?

This is an investor's website. Is it? Is it rather an outlet for interest groups in disguise? This article is irrelevant to investors, it would be fine for a personal blog, but here it is misplaced.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/88923-oil-headlines?source=feed#comment-225087 225087
Russia still has a long way to go, but I doubt the political will to max out their production/go beyond 10 Mnb/d, not even getting to the Russians' abilities. So their oil might not run out in a long time, but I don't think they will be doing as much as until recently to cover the incremental demand. There are few places left to find another Ghawar, while it still may be possible, the probability is low enough so that one should not bank on it. Also, new non-Opec discoveries will be a lot more expensive to bring to market than older ones due to rampant cost inflation in the up&downstream sectors. Also, drill ships are booked out for another five years or so, and as a rule of thumb it takes ~10yrs from first oil to exportable production. Consumption in exporting countries is rising rapidly, see e.g. KSA's decision to stop fuel oil exports which will increase demand for heavy crudes as refineries elsewhere will produce more of that stuff.

I cannot comment much about the Pickens plan in terms of viability etc as I am not in power gen, but some diversification of energy sources should not harm, and diversifying energy sources/lowering the US dependence on oil will improve matters for the majority, especially as China is not actually that far ahead of the US in terms of incremental oil demand over the past five years. Beyond that I have no interest in weighing into politically motivated analysis/discussions, other than to expose such contributions here on SA which pretend to deliver sound analysis when they are most likely spam from the political think tanks or the like.

As to abiogenic petroleum, well this is just as with the global warming thing, no, actually opposite. The former has no credible proponents that I know of, the latter has pretty much no credible opponents left (more or less citing the Economist which is not exactly tree hugger's publication). John Egan is not the only one who has to admit that he made a detour to the pits of Oil is Mastery site, from what I remember the cited science there was published in the 19th(!) century. Not that abiogenic petroleum does not exist at all, it is just that the huge quantities of oil man extracts from earth on a daily basis cannot really come from a replenishable source. Ok so let's say oil is infinite... how come we bother about OPEC? Start wars for oil? Is this "oil is limited" thing is just a conspiracy driving up prices? It is not. So why are you worrying about declines in existing fields if oil is unlimited anyway? I quite like this article: www.monthlyreview.org/... - reminds me of that old Greg Palast article on the Iraq war. It may also be just another conspiracy theory, but unfortunately the most credible I have seen. As to sub-$100 oil, I don't want to tie myself too much to oil price f/c, so just my loose expectation: oil will continue to decline near term, say H2 08, but rise in mid term. Bottom? 100 well likely, but not below 80. the quicker prices now fall, the less demand destruction, which will fuel the next ascend.]]> Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:08 -0400
Russia still has a long way to go, but I doubt the political will to max out their production/go beyond 10 Mnb/d, not even getting to the Russians' abilities. So their oil might not run out in a long time, but I don't think they will be doing as much as until recently to cover the incremental demand. There are few places left to find another Ghawar, while it still may be possible, the probability is low enough so that one should not bank on it. Also, new non-Opec discoveries will be a lot more expensive to bring to market than older ones due to rampant cost inflation in the up&downstream sectors. Also, drill ships are booked out for another five years or so, and as a rule of thumb it takes ~10yrs from first oil to exportable production. Consumption in exporting countries is rising rapidly, see e.g. KSA's decision to stop fuel oil exports which will increase demand for heavy crudes as refineries elsewhere will produce more of that stuff.

I cannot comment much about the Pickens plan in terms of viability etc as I am not in power gen, but some diversification of energy sources should not harm, and diversifying energy sources/lowering the US dependence on oil will improve matters for the majority, especially as China is not actually that far ahead of the US in terms of incremental oil demand over the past five years. Beyond that I have no interest in weighing into politically motivated analysis/discussions, other than to expose such contributions here on SA which pretend to deliver sound analysis when they are most likely spam from the political think tanks or the like.

As to abiogenic petroleum, well this is just as with the global warming thing, no, actually opposite. The former has no credible proponents that I know of, the latter has pretty much no credible opponents left (more or less citing the Economist which is not exactly tree hugger's publication). John Egan is not the only one who has to admit that he made a detour to the pits of Oil is Mastery site, from what I remember the cited science there was published in the 19th(!) century. Not that abiogenic petroleum does not exist at all, it is just that the huge quantities of oil man extracts from earth on a daily basis cannot really come from a replenishable source. Ok so let's say oil is infinite... how come we bother about OPEC? Start wars for oil? Is this "oil is limited" thing is just a conspiracy driving up prices? It is not. So why are you worrying about declines in existing fields if oil is unlimited anyway? I quite like this article: www.monthlyreview.org/... - reminds me of that old Greg Palast article on the Iraq war. It may also be just another conspiracy theory, but unfortunately the most credible I have seen. As to sub-$100 oil, I don't want to tie myself too much to oil price f/c, so just my loose expectation: oil will continue to decline near term, say H2 08, but rise in mid term. Bottom? 100 well likely, but not below 80. the quicker prices now fall, the less demand destruction, which will fuel the next ascend.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/88923-oil-headlines?source=feed#comment-222898 222898 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 04:43:48 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/86582-a-glut-of-petroleum-products?source=feed#comment-212994 212994 tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav... . So stocks seem to be based on compulsory surveys with a response rate of 98-100%. Now that still leaves the possibility that these respondents themselves model rather than measure the stocks, but that is unlikely, as it is simply easier for a refinery/port/etc to read their meters rather than devise a model. dieuwer, if you have any other serious info, please provide.]]> Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:56:01 -0400 tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav... . So stocks seem to be based on compulsory surveys with a response rate of 98-100%. Now that still leaves the possibility that these respondents themselves model rather than measure the stocks, but that is unlikely, as it is simply easier for a refinery/port/etc to read their meters rather than devise a model. dieuwer, if you have any other serious info, please provide.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85553-confirmatory-bias-and-oil-investing?source=feed#comment-208627 208627 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:49:51 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/84849-introduction-to-a-long-lecture-on-oil?source=feed#comment-205184 205184
b pursley - not sure why i still react to your ramblings. not knowing you or m damon personally, i would still put him way above you in terms of ideas and insight, given that he is ex-harvard and roles like mr ripley simply couldnt have been played by a dumbass. but then his quotes relate to his movie character, not him personally.]]> Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:27:20 -0400
b pursley - not sure why i still react to your ramblings. not knowing you or m damon personally, i would still put him way above you in terms of ideas and insight, given that he is ex-harvard and roles like mr ripley simply couldnt have been played by a dumbass. but then his quotes relate to his movie character, not him personally.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/83887-speculation-swaps-and-the-price-of-oil?source=feed#comment-199955 199955
I just read the linked article. Oh man, academia at its worst. The paper reads like a student essay. Those dudes downloaded some data from Haver and slapped some pretty standard econometrics techniques on it. The citations say a lot about the standing of the authors in this field... newspaper articles and a few seminal econometrics articles that one always has to quote when the methods are applied. The authors seem to have no clue of the oil market. They do not demonstrate any knowledge of the data (most of it would have been freely available at the EIA), statements like "OPEC having only 40% of world production" and the finding that the presence of cointegration between longer term oil futures and oil stocks is evidence for hoarding smack of ignorance. They do not even seem to be aware of the role of middle distillates in the current market, they would at least have to acknowledge it, even if they exclude it in their analysis. But their model is too simple to capture the oil market, as far as I am concerned I will not put any value into this paper's findings. ]]> Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:05:49 -0400
I just read the linked article. Oh man, academia at its worst. The paper reads like a student essay. Those dudes downloaded some data from Haver and slapped some pretty standard econometrics techniques on it. The citations say a lot about the standing of the authors in this field... newspaper articles and a few seminal econometrics articles that one always has to quote when the methods are applied. The authors seem to have no clue of the oil market. They do not demonstrate any knowledge of the data (most of it would have been freely available at the EIA), statements like "OPEC having only 40% of world production" and the finding that the presence of cointegration between longer term oil futures and oil stocks is evidence for hoarding smack of ignorance. They do not even seem to be aware of the role of middle distillates in the current market, they would at least have to acknowledge it, even if they exclude it in their analysis. But their model is too simple to capture the oil market, as far as I am concerned I will not put any value into this paper's findings. ]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/83546-iea-s-oil-market-outlook-off-the-mark?source=feed#comment-197720 197720 Thu, 03 Jul 2008 05:57:29 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/83416-hey-congress-speculators-may-not-be-the-bad-guys?source=feed#comment-197021 197021 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:39:46 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/83092-3-aspects-to-pricing-oil?source=feed#comment-195687 195687
So smokey... (1) reserve estimates of the US offshore fields are old and vague, but do not expect to find another Ghahar/Cantarell etc that can keep up current US consumption ad infinitum. It will buy you time, but will not affect the price much (the US cannot use domestic fields to isolate itself from world markets), but it won't buy you very much time. (2) is much more important - solve the demand side, get yourself off the stuff. The main obstacle to progress here has been the present US gov't, which has happily invaded Iraq on behalf of its oil majors, but has been blocking climate and other progressive treaties. Political will is paramount, as energy efficiency is riddled with market failures. But many interest groups and voters are against it due to the negative short term implications...]]> Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:32:12 -0400
So smokey... (1) reserve estimates of the US offshore fields are old and vague, but do not expect to find another Ghahar/Cantarell etc that can keep up current US consumption ad infinitum. It will buy you time, but will not affect the price much (the US cannot use domestic fields to isolate itself from world markets), but it won't buy you very much time. (2) is much more important - solve the demand side, get yourself off the stuff. The main obstacle to progress here has been the present US gov't, which has happily invaded Iraq on behalf of its oil majors, but has been blocking climate and other progressive treaties. Political will is paramount, as energy efficiency is riddled with market failures. But many interest groups and voters are against it due to the negative short term implications...]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/82813-solution-to-the-global-petroleum-crisis?source=feed#comment-193125 193125 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:58:01 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/82065-energy-subsidies-and-levels-of-demand?source=feed#comment-188932 188932 Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:31:38 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81938-can-offshore-drilling-bring-down-gas-prices?source=feed#comment-188600 188600 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:38:14 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81932-how-much-will-drilling-in-anwr-affect-oil-prices?source=feed#comment-188592 188592 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:27:06 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81979-oil-s-supply-and-demand?source=feed#comment-188576 188576 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:00:36 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81720-tracking-crack-spreads?source=feed#comment-188222 188222 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:21:01 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81519-oil-hits-140-what-could-trigger-a-reverse?source=feed#comment-187103 187103 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:53:16 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81519-oil-hits-140-what-could-trigger-a-reverse?source=feed#comment-186931 186931 " 1) Other OPEC nations follow with production increases" - which one? can't think of any that could, at least not by much.

"3) Congress needs to clamp down on oil speculators" - you as a trader might actually understand this one. How are traders able to push up the oil price this much over a sustained period? How has that much money? How come refineries are currently paying even more than the WTI benchmark for light sweet crudes? But I am not a trader, so maybe you can enlight me?!

"4) US releases strategic oil reserves." - Are you suggesting that the SPR should do a Helicopter Ben and flush the market with oil to bring down prices for a short while? Please tell me that I misunderstood you, because this would be completely nuts.

"Otherwise there aren’t many other ways to prevent oil from rising to $200 a barrel." - yes there are. Increasing refinery complexities so that heavy sour crude can be refined at a profit by more refiners, cutting down consumption by increasing efficiencies, new technologies etc. Lowering fuel standards would also reduce crude demand. But why am I providing free knowledge to someone who is making money from newsletters etc while having no clue of what she is talking about. At least when it comes to oil.
]]> Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:09:33 -0400 " 1) Other OPEC nations follow with production increases" - which one? can't think of any that could, at least not by much.

"3) Congress needs to clamp down on oil speculators" - you as a trader might actually understand this one. How are traders able to push up the oil price this much over a sustained period? How has that much money? How come refineries are currently paying even more than the WTI benchmark for light sweet crudes? But I am not a trader, so maybe you can enlight me?!

"4) US releases strategic oil reserves." - Are you suggesting that the SPR should do a Helicopter Ben and flush the market with oil to bring down prices for a short while? Please tell me that I misunderstood you, because this would be completely nuts.

"Otherwise there aren’t many other ways to prevent oil from rising to $200 a barrel." - yes there are. Increasing refinery complexities so that heavy sour crude can be refined at a profit by more refiners, cutting down consumption by increasing efficiencies, new technologies etc. Lowering fuel standards would also reduce crude demand. But why am I providing free knowledge to someone who is making money from newsletters etc while having no clue of what she is talking about. At least when it comes to oil.
]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/81424-will-the-saudis-increase-oil-production?source=feed#comment-186219 186219 Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:57:42 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/81249-drilling-in-anwr-what-s-not-to-like?source=feed#comment-184893 184893 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:08:17 -0400 http://seekingalpha.com/article/80994-speculating-on-oil-bubbles?source=feed#comment-183919 183919 author: ok so let's say it is a bubble, the spr releases oil, but oil hoarders know that the spr has to restock soon for which it will buy a lot of WTI type oil, because that's what's mostly in the spr (not the heavy stuff for which discounts have just been increased as demand for the lesser grades is subdued). oil hoarders will hold out and sell when the spr purchases push the price up again, possibly to new peaks.]]> Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:11:44 -0400 author: ok so let's say it is a bubble, the spr releases oil, but oil hoarders know that the spr has to restock soon for which it will buy a lot of WTI type oil, because that's what's mostly in the spr (not the heavy stuff for which discounts have just been increased as demand for the lesser grades is subdued). oil hoarders will hold out and sell when the spr purchases push the price up again, possibly to new peaks.]]>