WayneS

Why Oil Is Not Safe for the Individual Investor

"Yes, you can get more oil out of existing fields using relatively new technologies, but the investments have not been made and are mammoth. "

They are making big money from exhausted fields the old fashioned-way, sue someone . Oil Fields that XOM plugged and abandoned 10 years ago are being renamed sabotaged wells. They are telling the general public that someone would actually try to open up a fifty+ year old well that has not been in use for 10 years and restart it. The safety concerns here are insurmountable. Of course, if the new company has any kind of safety incident, it will be XOM's fault. This is a win/win situation for someone. I'm sure they hope they never actually have to make money by pumping out the leftover brine in this field.

Why Oil Is Not Safe for the Individual Investor

"Manipulation" can be anything not intended. Most manipulation is caused by knee-jerk efforts to become rich yesterday without any effort. We are but a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off with plausible explanations for everything. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Everything. Remember what the greatest philosopher of the last 1000 years, Bill Clinton, said, "It depends on what the meaning of is is."

Why Oil Is Not Safe for the Individual Investor

"Secondly, what Mike Riess calls Modern Market Manipulation "

This has been going on a lot longer than 2004. In the 1980's, an oil company used their own crude to make gasoline in their own refinery and sold this gasoline in their own gas stations for 10% cheaper than the other gas stations. The State fined this company $2 billion for tax evasion.

On Oil's Sesquicentennial, The Dream Becomes a Nightmare

JeffDB stated: "That may be true, but the new "fracking" method they are using to break up those layers of rock to get at that natural gas is drawing some fire from environmentalists and the government. They are claiming that it is contaminating drinking water:"

Fracturing does not break up layers of rock. It mostly widens and lengthens naturally occuring fractures to maybe a 1/4 of an inch. This void is filled with sand and the pressure is released. The earth goes back to an equilibrium similar to the original. In other words fracturing just makes a narrow channel about this width ][ for the gas to travel to the wellbore. Producing drinking water can cause subsidence, such as in Houston, but gas cannot hold up anything except balloons.
Also, there are downhole tools that can map these fractures and determine if they break through to a different formation, i.e. aquifer. Weatherford has such a tool. Gas companies utilize this tool because they don't want gas they just spent millions of dollars to get to leak out into an aquifer or any other formation.

On Oil's Sesquicentennial, The Dream Becomes a Nightmare

On Jul 06 12:14 PM nakedjaybird wrote:

> I agree with Alphameister - we have opportunities galore using known
> and proven technologies, even much more the yet to be developed/applied,
> to not only use less energy or other forms of energy but other ways
> of doing things, ALL OF WHICH HAVE BEEN ROADBLOCKED, MOTHBALLED,
> SMOTHERED, OR BOUGHT AND SQUASHED

Not all have been roadblocked, etc. We waste 25-40% of the fuel used in vehicles. A simple solution is available to all. Stop speeding, tailgating, & rapid accelerations/braking. Another is carpooling. The hybrid could have been a good thing, but what happened? It was found that people weren't getting the mileage they expected when they spent extra money to save money on fuel. What did we do? We dumbed down the estimated fuel mileage quoted to match that of bad drivers.

Oil Price Economics the 60 Minutes Way

Part of the rise in oil was the weekening of the dollar. Foreign oil cost more for those paying dollars. It didn't go as high for those paying Euros; as previously shown on Alpha. American oil companies with wells in foreign lands had to pay more for service companies and materials and transportation.

The amount of gasoline that can be stored is very limited.
Gasoline is still a minor part of refining. Oil companies really do only make a small profit margin on gasoline as the CEOs told Congress.
Most of 2008, they lost money. Oil went up 100% and gasoline only 37%.

Oil Price Economics the 60 Minutes Way

The oil companies are the only ones that invest in oil. They spend decades and billions of dollars to produce oil. They also pay exorbitant taxes. XOM payed 47% income tax last year. All others are profit takers. They use borrowed money. Take no responsibility for the oil getting to market. They pay rediculously low capital gains taxes.

Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil?

Taojones I am an oil employee and this is a finacial blog. The idea is to make money for the share holders. If I were the CEO of my company, I would quit making gasoline and make more of the profitable products I supply. I would close all gas stations with my company's name on it so people would quit thinking my only business is to provide them with gasoline.

Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil?

Gasoline has never been a product that anyone has ever made money. Gas stations sold gas so they could get you in and sell you oil or tires or fix your brakes. Now convenience stores and grocery stores and discount stores sell gasoline at a loss so you buy their other products. Refiners margins are typically low and have gone lower as crude goes up. Gasoline is at the present undervalued.

Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil?

Pedestrian
Don't judge a book by it's cover. I got rid of my 95 Toyota clone (Geo) because I get better mileage and pollute less with my one-ton dually diesel truck. I get over 60 mpg and last put 20 gallons in on Feb 28th. I might make it to after Labor Day, when the price is suppose to go down. I carpool with several other people and drive sensibly, i.e. obey the law, and don't brake or accelerate on the HOV.
Trains are 3 times more efficient than trucks. Outlaw semis between major cities. Outlaw racing and tractor pulls.

Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil?

The U.S. dollar is tied to oil and someone else controls the oil.

Who's Really to Blame for Rising Oil?

Tomorrow, the U.S. Congress is voting on a resolution that will cure all.
They are adding excise taxes, punative taxes and instituting double taxation on all of the profits American oil companies make overseas. Once the American oil companies (over 500) are destroyed, they plan on suing OPEC and forcing them to make gasoline cheap again.