Canuck Investor

1,238 Billion Barrels of Oil Reserves: Is This an Oil Price Bubble?

A lot of those reserves only exist on paper. The OPEC producers in the Persian Gulf have vastly overstated their reserves to increase their production quotas.

NYMEX: Speculators Aren't Driving Oil Market

Speculators have little to no effect on the price of oil. The price is determined by supply and demand. It's called the market mechanism. Does anyone believe the Saudis when they say the rise in price is caused by speculators and there's plenty of oil in the market?

Big Oil Once Again Abused by Congress

I like the article. But what congress should have been asking is why has big oil done so little frontier, high-impact exploration in the last 20 years. The oil majors are minnows in terms of their ability to affect the price of crude but if they could put some effort into finding elephant fields they might be able to have an impact. While there probably aren't too many giants left to find, the world is a big place and some areas outside of North America have potential. Big Oil's approach to adding reserves has been scan the stock tables for a takeover candidate and that becomes a zero sum game with no effect on the world oil supply.

Chavez's Empty Threats

While Chavez won't cut off supply to the U.S., there's currently no worldwide oil surplus to replace Venezuelan production.