STORM2K

Chavez Threatens to Jail Diplomats, Shut Refineries (Update1)
Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to jail diplomats and close refineries belonging to the U.S. unit of the state oil company in an escalating war of words with the President George W. Bush.

U.S. diplomats continue to engage in espionage in his country, Chavez told hundreds of thousands of supporters today during a government rally commemorating the 14th anniversary of his abortive coup attempt in 1992 against former President Carlos Andres Perez. He said he would jail U.S. diplomats caught spying, while challenging the U.S. to break diplomatic ties

For Full Story:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... in_america

The $260 a barrel for oil MAY not be that far off now

"dusty"

azdustman wrote:The $260 a barrel for oil MAY not be that far off now

No way. Remember, the oil market is global. if Venezuela shuts off its taps just to us, then they'll sell the same oil to someone else, who then will free up some oil for us to buy from another player. One producer can't manipulate the market by choosing who they sell to.

gtalum wrote:

azdustman wrote:The $260 a barrel for oil MAY not be that far off now

No way. Remember, the oil market is global. if Venezuela shuts off its taps just to us, then they'll sell the same oil to someone else, who then will free up some oil for us to buy from another player. One producer can't manipulate the market by choosing who they sell to.

We'll see........you know the "speculators" are the ones' who DRIVE the market not the companies.......take a look at the stock market tomorrow when this news hits, bet ya

Dennis

The stock market may or may not react, but oil won't hit $260 a barrel.

I wish I could share your optimism gtalum but I do believe that we are headed for a significant spike in oil prices. I think that $260/barrel of oil is farfetched for now but I don't think that oil over $100/barrel is out of the question in the short term. I think that any disruption in supply to the US will spike prices. Remember the hurricanes last year disrupted a small amount of US oil supply and prices rose to record levels. $70.80/barrel. A similar supply disruption coupled with unease over the middle east could easily cause oil futures to eclipse $100/barrel. I hope I am wrong because the economic turmoil that such high oil/fuel prices would cause would be quite unpleasant. I would predict that if prices remained high for long there would be an economic slowdown to equal the 87 recession or even greater. Much more than $100 per barrel could cause a depression. Again not pleasant. Hope you are right and I am wrong but I see some very hard times ahead.
Tim

Another possibility is an oil embargo by the madman of Iran if this situation escalates further. Hope everyone has a plan already in place

canegrl04 wrote:Another possibility is an oil embargo by the madman of Iran if this situation escalates further. Hope everyone has a plan already in place

Again, he has to sell oil to live. If he sells oil anywhere on the world marketplace, his "embargo" will not have any significant effect on the supply of oil worldwide.

$100 per barrel might be possible at the outside, but only for a very short time. At those prices demand will fall off dramatically and as a result the price will come back down.

$100 per barrel might be possible at the outset,but only for a very short time


If there is a war,the affect on oil will not be short term.Iran's leader is insane.He could use his missiles to blow up their oil facilities, and blow up US ships

I have posted this here before but I will post it again. Before you break out the tinfoil hats for me please remember that I hold a Master's degree in Science education and that I am very conservative in my views. I have been reading/ researching this topic for awhile now and the more I read the more concerned I get.

Please read the following with an open mind and please find sources to dispute the conclusions, I have not been able to find much to debunk the thesis set forth on the following site.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

The author IMO discredits our ability to switch to alternative sources of fuels. Personally, I think our future is in ethanol despite what the author claims. Brazil currently uses ethanol as fuel for its automobiles. Sorry, but I can't buy this. We won't be walking or riding bikes to work in 20 years. More doom-and-gloom......MGC

This is BS. Something needs to be done. Now

MGC wrote:The author IMO discredits our ability to switch to alternative sources of fuels. Personally, I think our future is in ethanol despite what the author claims. Brazil currently uses ethanol as fuel for its automobiles. Sorry, but I can't buy this. We won't be walking or riding bikes to work in 20 years. More doom-and-gloom......MGC

I don't feel that he discredits our ability to use alternatives so much as says that it simply is not enough. If you look at the amount of energy needed to make ethanol it does not make sense long term. From what I have been able to gather ethanol may be a rather good transition fuel but for long term, large scale use it will take almost as much energy to make as it will produce. My first thoughts with reading the site was much the same as yours MGC but on more research I tend to agree with many of the tenets of the argument. My only concern or question is the timing. I have been learning and teaching about the finite quantity of hydrocarbons for many years and always simply assumed that there would be no supply problems during my lifetime now I am not so sure. I think that further research and honest debate must be undertaken on this issue. While I don't suscribe to the doom and gloom that many seem to thrive on, I think the issue of Oil will become a paramount issue of our time. I personally intend to learn all I can and withhold judgement until I feel I have enough information to draw a intelligent conclusion.

Remember:
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert Spencer, British philosopher

Bottom line.......... big business doesn't make money on alternative energy sources. Sorry but I refuse to stick my head in the sand. Sadly It's all about profit.

One thing is for sure, a swich to alternatives will take a lot of time, time we should have been investing and instead have been wasting for at least the past 30 years. As has been mentioned above, look at Brazil. They have switched a very large portion of their oil use to ethanol use. Our government has been extremely short-sighted in appeasing the oil lobby for all that time, since the Carter administration and probably longer.

Th eproblem with that site, lsu2001, is that it doesn't take into account the vast untapped reserves of the world. Sure they're not finding vast pockets of liquid oil veyr often these days, but as the price of oil creeps up, more resources become profitable to exploit, like oil sale and tar sands. The "Peak Oil" crash will probably happen, but it won't be in the next few decades.

Rainband wrote:Bottom line.......... big business doesn't make money on alternative energy sources. Sorry but I refuse to stick my head in the sand. Sadly It's all about profit.

Big business most certainly woul dmake a lot of money on alternative energy. They just don't want to make the up-front investment in research. This is why the government shoul dbe funding research like mad. FOrtunately, other governments haven't dropped the ball like ours has and there will be drop-in replacements available if necessary, after a painful adjustment period.

An interesting article from a more reputable site. I find it quite supportive of the thesis that Oil production may be peaking.
Tim

Oil Prices: The New Reality
Futures traders are already assuming sky-high prices are here to stay

Everyone knows it: oil prices have gone through the roof. The price of benchmark crude rose 11% this year alone, to about $67 per barrel, before pulling back a little. But many in the industry have always figured that prices would sooner or later simmer down. One indication: Even when short-term prices soared to alarming levels, the futures market had until recently valued oil much more modestly. As new supplies came onstream, traders figured, prices would drift back down to their long-term average, which for years was about $20 per barrel. This thinking still influences the big oil companies, who have held back from investing massively in new projects.
Full Story here:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 970078.htm

i'm surprised the State department hasnt issued some sort of travel advisory regarding Venezuela.

alicia-w wrote:i'm surprised the State department hasnt issued some sort of travel advisory regarding Venezuela.

Ooh I hope they do. I've always wanted to go there and that would drop airfares to nothing.