Loup-Garou

Why Is Oil Creeping Back Up?

Just a guess, but it is conceivable there are some Sovereign Wealth Funds doing all they can to drive up oil prices.This includes taling large positions in futures markets.

In the middle east, social unrest comes when the government can no longer pay for services wanted by citizens. (applies domestically also).

Considering the declared policies of this administration and Congress, there is a huge risk in owning any U.S. based oil stock. Payback and punitive measures are now policy in the U.S. For risk aversive folks (moi) companies outside U.S. look more attractive.

The Good, The Bad, And the Inaccurate Oil Forecasts

So far, the comments seem more valuable and informative than the article.

In the stock and commodities markets it is usually easier to predict WHAT is

going to happen than WHEN it is going to happen.

The next terrorist attack of scale will drive oil over $100. Sure. But when?

Geologist: In Terms of Supply and Demand, the Oil Peak Is Past

Great article. As usual, comments are even better than the article.

The talking heads on TV make it sound as though oil will be replaced by the alternatives, tomorrow, or next week at latest. Meanwhile, don't invest in a buggywhip factory as we said in the 30s.

Oil will be around until affordable alternatives get here.

Oil Prices, Global GDP, and Net Oil Exports

An extremely helpful article. The chart is breathtaking.

If you believe that in the oil markets prices are set at

the margins, then higher prices can be anticipated.

Confirmatory Bias and Oil Investing

Politics, domestic and international, has a tremendous effect on oil prices. There is no physical lack of oil under the surface. My estimate is the Saudi lift price per barrel is $5 or so. Whether they can or cannot increase production, and by what factor, is a matter of great dispute. Guessing which way the oil price cat will jump requires a lot of attention to the human political factor in addition to the physical and geologic factors.

Gas Lines Coming This Fall

America has a problem that is not, at bottom, an energy problem.
America is in a chaotic state of denial, and lacks any concensus, any focussing of the political will of this country to do what is necessary to survive. Our present course is suicidal.

Czarist Russia in February 1917 had an implosion, not a Revolution. The government could not function, and the bread riots followed the pattern of the bread riots of the French Revolution over 100 years earlier. The Czar left the scene.

October, 1917, was not a Revolution, as advertised, but a short-lived coup d'etat by the Bolsheviks. The actual Revolution started a bit later when ordinary people realized their country had been hijacked. The Bolsheviks re-named themselves "Communists" in a PR move, in case you forgot.

When the bread riots and the gasoline riots start in America, this will signal the beginning of the end. It will be war. As a Russian military instructor taught, "War is War...War is kill or be killed."

Want to survive? Buy into companies outside the U.S.A. Brazil and Canada come to mind.

So You Think Oil’s Expensive Now?

"All" the risks are unknown, and cannot be fully priced in. Many oil related stocks still trade at low multiples of earnings, as though the "correct" price is $70 bbl. Some of the potential supply disruptions are very real and have high probability. The demand destruction factors seem to be over the horizon.

Now we see through a glass darkly. After Labor Day we shall see more clearly.

Bespoke's Commodity Snapshot (6/16/08)

Good analytical tool.