The Iraq thread 4

[walker 0]

Previous (Iraq thread 3) thread

Hi all

Some preliminaries

Speculation in it self is not bad.

Quote[/b] ]According to NPR, one of the forces driving up gasoline prices are speculators in the oil futures market. From the way they said it, it sounded to me like they thought that speculation was a bad thing. It's not. Speculation is a good thing.

Prices do more than simply determine how much you pay for something. They also carry information. When something gets more expensive in a free market, that indicates that the demand for it has risen without a corresponding rise in the supply. This has two effects. First, it rewards the people who were careful to own the thing which is now in demand. Second, it causes people to husband their supply of that thing.

Everyone expects us to run out of oil. My entire lifetime people have been anticipating the day when we'll finally "run out of oil." That day has not yet come and never will. We'll never run out--we'll just run out of oil that anybody is willing to pay for. So, the price of oil will rise in the future because of increased demand and lessened supply. The trouble is "when".

http://angry-economist.russnelson.com/specula....et.html

Speculation becomes bad when people engage in insider trading.

Current high oil prices are driven by speculation not demand or supply (no one has run out of oil at the gas pumps) OPEC thinks the oil price should be 25 to 30 dollars a barrel.

Quote[/b] ]Speculators betting on $50/barrel oil by summer

Reuters, 04.30.04, 2:14 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Speculators banking on crude oil prices going much higher than already lofty levels now, perhaps hitting $50 a barrel by summer, are raising the ante, bets in the crude oil options market showed Friday.

Those speculators, playing on the potential of oil supply being disrupted with violence in the Middle East on the rise, have bought crude oil options with strike prices of $40 and $50 on the June to October contracts, data from the NYMEX Web site show.

http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/04/30/rtr1355431.html

Someone has been betting on the the future price of oil and consistently getting it right.

Or rather they have been consistently betting on the degree of violence in the middle east.

Four driving factors in current middle east violence

1) Isreal/Palestine can be largely discounted as the effect is ongoing and has not realy changed and has little direct impact on any oil producing nation.

Low risk low return investment opotunity for those in the know

2) Terrorist violence Several factors and factions involved and would require insider knowledge of terrorist activity and news of probable attacks at least 3 months in advance. I would expect Al Qaida to invest based on this. Members of the intelligence community and governments could pass such information on to their investor/speculator friends.

Low risk high return investments for those in the know.

3) Iraq independance movement Several factors and factions involved and would require insider knowledge of independance activity and news of probable attacks or action at least 3 months in advance. Several groups could invest on this.

High risk high return investments as there is no guarantee of the level of violence or activity on which to calculate the value of the investment also dependent on factor 4) below

4) Occupation force activities. This is the most predictable factor in the equation. Companies with insider knowledge of say the Abu Ghraib incedent could have invested back in September when information first apeared in Paul Bremmer's in-tray. Those in the know before the gulf war started with information on how long things can be strung out for.

Low risk high return; a good investment oportunity

I know of at least one company that specialises in investing in goverment decisions with uncanny accuracy.

It is called the Carlyle Group, there are others.

A trawl through those investing in oil futures and options and which ones are making money from: high gas prices, peoples missery, wounding and death of Iraqis and coalition soldiers.

We need a list of those companies speculationg on oil prices and getting it so right.

Kind Regards Walker

[MLF 0]

iraq thread?

[theavonlady 2]

It is called the Carlyle Group, there are others.

So? Speculation in it self is not bad, or so I was told.

Quote[/b] ]A trawl through those investing in oil futures and options and which ones are making money from: high gas prices, peoples missery, wounding and death of Iraqis and coalition soldiers.

We need a list of those companies speculationg on oil prices and getting it so right.

Are we going to start threads on currency, grain, gold and pork belly trading, too?

And don't you think that the speculators in France, Russia and China aren't playing the same games? You make it sound like you've discovered ................ oil.

[walker 0]

Hi Avon

It is simple:

These people make money by getting information on millitary and terrorist matters that cost soldiers and innocents their lives.

It is called insider trading and it is illegal.

We need to know who they are; then they can be prosecuted.

Secondly it would give indications of who was linked to terrorist activities. You may remember that 3 months before 9/11 there was some very odd behaviour in the airline options market. Someone made many millions off it amaizing luck on that bet.

Kind Regards Walker

[theavonlady 2]

These people make money by getting information on millitary and terrorist matters that cost soldiers and innocents their lives.

It is called insider trading and it is illegal.

I'm not so sure that getting military and terrorist new/info qualifies for "insider" trading under US SEC regulations. There's a very big gray area there as most of this data is by definition extrenal to the company.

We would need a corporate lawyer to lay down the guidelines.

And again, the ammount of commodities speculation that goes on day in and out 24x7 worldwide is immesurable and oil is obviously now in the limelight.

I would expect that oil companies and their affiliates are allowed to speculate in oil, with possible limitations, in any country in the world.

This is very unexciting, unless you've made a bundle.

[theavonlady 2]

You may remember that 3 months before 9/11 there was some very odd behaviour in the airline options market. Someone made many millions off it amaizing luck on that bet.

Now that was important! Anyone hear anything about the ensuing investigations that should have traced the short call trades of UAL and AA stock at the time?

[bn880 5]

I have heard that one of the reasons for the rise is some inability to refine the oil into fuels quickly enough, especially in the states.

Somehow I really doubt this is the reason for the price hike. I remember one analyst saying: "Soon they will raise the price of crude just to lower it in time for the re-election of Bush". It would suggest immense illegal activities, but totally possible in 2004 don't you think, after all we are going back to our primal behaviours everyhwere.

PS: Price of fuel is still way too low, when I look out the window I still see 50% Tanks on roads. We should be dealing with 1.6l engines on average but we've got something like 3-4l average now, and vehicle over 1.5 tons driven with a single person inside.

[walker 0]

This is very unexciting, unless you've made a bundle.

Hi Avon

You obviously find the story exciting or you would not have replied.

No I have not invested in it but with a list of such investors one could make a lot of money.

1) Copy there investments

2) Blackmail them

3) Sell the information to the press

4) Write a best selling book about it

5) Syndicate exerpts of the book to the press

6) Sell the film rights to holywood

Anyone who does know who is up to this very interesting activity should go for it. Whistblower stories are big bucks.

Kind Regards Walker

[theavonlady 2]

You obviously find the story exciting or you would not have replied.

Sometimes I reply because I believe things are being blown out of proportion.

Quote[/b] ]No I have not invested in it but with a list of such investors one could make a lot of money.

1) Copy there investments

2) Blackmail them

3) Sell the information to the press

4) Write a best selling book about it

5) Syndicate exerpts of the book to the press

6) Sell the film rights to holywood

Anyone who does know who is up to this very interesting activity should go for it. Whistblower stories are big bucks.

Then why are you still here?

About oil refinery capacity problems in the US, there was a BusinessWeek article on this subject over a month ago:

Quote[/b] ]Are Refiners Boosting The Pain At The Pump?

They're reluctant to increase production lest profits take a hit

Gasoline prices are near all-time highs even though the peak summer driving season is months away. The national average for regular gasoline was $1.72 a gallon in mid-March -- an 18% hike in just three months. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the average price was around $2.15, and super went for a supercharged $2.35. Nor is the worst over: On Mar. 17, the Energy Dept. announced that inventories of gasoline had dropped again -- the seventh time in the last eight weeks. That raises the likelihood that prices will go up another dime or so in coming weeks.

What's going on? With global supplies of crude tight and OPEC increasingly willing to flex its muscles, the dominant factor in high gasoline prices is, of course, $38-a-barrel oil. That's where oil prices stood on Mar. 17 -- the highest since Oct. 16, 1990, prior to the Gulf War. But there's another factor: the dysfunctional U.S. refining industry, in which the slightest disturbance sends prices through the roof.

After years of skimpy investment, refineries are chronically overtaxed, running at better than 90% of capacity on average. And differing environmental regulations can make it impossible for refiners in one region to relieve shortages in neighboring areas. Even oil industry honchos say something is wrong. Notes Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM ) Chairman and CEO Lee R. Raymond: "There are fewer and fewer degrees of flexibility in the system."

Refiners are running near capacity because they have little incentive to build more. For starters, they make more money when supplies are tight. Refining profit margins in the last week of February were $6.74 a barrel, vs. a five-year average of $4, according to data collected by UBS. In California, where refiners have a long history of high profit margins, the late-February refining margin was $13.78 a barrel. That's double the five-year average of $6.76, UBS says, though margins have since come down.

Refining is hardly a model of pure competition. A merger wave has left ownership highly concentrated, and the big players know that any large increase in their output would push down prices and shrink profits. According to an analysis of corporate filings by Public Citizen's Energy Program, a liberal research group, the top five refiners controlled 51% of domestic capacity last year, while the top 10 controlled 77%. That's a sharp increase from 10 years earlier, when the top five had just 33% and the top 10 had 54%.

A PREFERENCE FOR 'CREEP'

Even if refiners were eager to build plants, they would face daunting costs -- more than $2 billion per plant, partly the result of strict pollution controls. Then there's the inevitable not-in-my-backyard opposition. After all, refineries are smelly and ugly. Moreover, lots can go wrong. Houston entrepreneur John R. Stanley spent the 1990s trying to modernize a shuttered Louisiana refinery. Cost overruns and operational snafus racked up more than $1 billion in debt before the business entered bankruptcy in 1999. San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. (VLO ) bought the refinery last year for $500 million. That, it figures, is just 20% of the total that had been invested in the plant.

Valero is typical in its preference for growth through acquisition of existing refineries, rather than breaking ground for new ones. "We don't have any plans to build a grassroots refinery," says William E. Greehey, the chairman and CEO. To the extent that the industry has boosted capacity, it has come instead through "creep" -- lingo for adding to existing plants. Overall, refining capacity has risen just 8% inside the U.S. since 1996, vs. 13% outside the U.S., according to data compiled by Oil & Gas Journal and brokerage Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. (FBR )

Another reason for the capacity squeeze: The industry is also closing smaller plants. Shell Oil Co. plans to shut one in Bakersfield, Calif., on Oct. 1, even though the state has some of the country's worst supply problems. Shell, which didn't try to find a buyer for the refinery, says not enough oil is available locally to keep it supplied. But in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) questions that explanation and asks whether the closure will "cause further anticompetitive problems in West Coast gasoline markets, such as raising prices or restricting supply."

Wyden isn't the only lawmaker on the refiners' case. A 400-page report in 2002 by the staff of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, then chaired by Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, uncovered several internal memos in which oil-industry execs advocated measures to hold back refinery output to keep gas prices high. That report trumpeted an earlier FTC analysis showing that, according to one method of calculating market concentration, 28 states had "tight oligopolies" in 2000, up from 14 in 1994.

Refining execs argue their business is competitive. But the fact is, the main relief for consumers in recent years has come from imported gasoline, which accounts for around 10% of domestic supply. That's double the 5% of a decade ago. Trouble is, relief isn't instant. With the exception of neighboring Canada, foreign refiners take longer than domestic ones to step up deliveries when supply falls. Earlier this year, in fact, imports actually fell from the level of a year earlier -- possibly because foreign refiners needed time to comply with new federal low-sulfur standards. And some imports come from unreliable sources such as Venezuela.

In contrast with the debate over the industry's structure, there's near unanimity that differing regional blends of gasoline contribute to higher prices by making it harder for refineries to ship gasoline to hard-up regions with incompatible formulations. Many analysts are worried about the possibility of a big price spike in New York and Connecticut because those states began using ethanol as an oxygenate additive this year. June is the deadline for starting to sell the summer blend, which must not evaporate and pollute the air when pumped on hot summer days. Prices could rise 30 cents to 40 cents per gallon if there's a shortage, the Energy Dept. concluded last year.

That's the kind of thing that can happen when an industry is overstretched. Yet as little momentum exists for standardizing environmental regulations as there is for boosting refining capacity. That may be great news for the refinery industry. But U.S. drivers are going to have to get used to those wild upward price swings.

By Peter Coy in New York, with Stephanie Anderson Forest in Dallas and Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles

[walker 0]

Hi Avon

What an odd coincedence

Quote[/b] ]For months, fears of a terrorist attack on major petroleum facilities have helped drive crude oil and gasoline prices steadily upward. Now, just as prices were starting to retreat from record levels, a deadly assault in one of the industry's most vital hubs has raised those worries to new heights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3124-2004May30.html

Just when the prices are about to go down.

People are making money from speculating on the price of oil and getting it earily right.

It is going up to the 50 dollar mark they intended.

And who pays for this?

People who buy gas at the pump.

Innocents caught in cross fire.

Soldiers occupying Iraq.

The Real question is who is making the cash?

Not OPEC they sold the oil to these speculators via options at arround 30 dollars the barrel.

The speculators are making almost half the cost of a barrel of oil at the pump.

How do they know when to invest?

Kind Regards Walker

[Guest]

You forgot one large contributing factor...the US. What makes you think they mightn't be prolonging the violence in Iraq for exactly the same sorts of reasons you attribute to other people? Of course, that would mean that the President/Vice President etc would have to have connections to oil companies.....

[theavonlady 2]

How do they know when to invest?

How does any commodity trader know when to invest?

This is really unexciting. There are tons of companies and people who making market killings throughout the year in stocks, commodities and every other financial instrument under the sun.

Why don't you see how far you can go back last year to when speculators were predicting sky high prices per barrel.

It eats me up that I didn't personally speculate on oil.

[walker 0]

You forgot one large contributing factor...the US. What makes you think they mightn't be prolonging the violence in Iraq for exactly the same sorts of reasons you attribute to other people? Of course, that would mean that the President/Vice President etc would have to have connections to oil companies.....

Hi Leone

Please try to keep seperate the US which includes the people paying the price ie gas at the pump, innocents killed in terrorist attacks and US solders in Iraq

From

Speculators who may or may not be from the US.

I also think a direct link to members of TBA very unlikely they are not that stupid.

Such work is done by revolving door methods. They will get jobs in the companies a year or so after leaving office. In the meantime they will be on the promotional lecture circuit at 50,000 dollars a speech in dinners paid for by these same companies.

The Carlyle Group funds a lot of after dinner speeches.

It then employs a lot of former administration people, Presidents, Primeministers, ministers and secretaries of state etc. It used to employ half of TBA before they got in power and has an uncanny knack of investing in just the right thing at the right time with regard to government decisions.

So much so that many are starting to acuse it of insider trading.

Kind Regards Walker

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Holy shit- someone bet on people killing each other in the Middle East? I think maybe we should call Detective Columbo. And the idea that the oil futures market is driving prices to these heights is a ridiculous theory, and anyone with more than a superficial knowledge of the petroleum business will tell you so. Besides walker, if your own personal (and completely unfounded) accusations were to be borne out to their logical conclusions, then the oil futures market would be completely unnecessary for these villains of capitalism to make money off of this 'oil war', because their holdings pre-war represented an enormous block of infrastructure in both the petroleum and military-industrial complexes. The idea that these robber barons would engineer a war just to piddle around in a futures market is fastidiously idiotic.

The summer oil price spike is nothing new, but for some reason, every summer all the Chicken Little's come out to declare that the sky is falling. The fact is that it is simple economic factors: increased demand in America due to increased driving + increased energy use because it's so bloody hot in some of America's most populous regions + a full-blown shooting war on the back stoop of the world's largest producer + uncertainty over Venezuela's ability to maintain production levels due to having a crazy-ass megalomaniac in power + America's rampant inability to cut back on anything (because it isn't the commercial sector that's causing this spike) = higher prices. It's not refineries underproducing. All the indicators I've seen show that refineries in America are running right where they always are this time of year: right at capacity. However, you don't hear a clamor for more refineries because the folks in charge of their operation are not laypeople who only get acquainted with the subtleties of the petroleum market for 2 weeks in the summer every year. An increase in the number of refineries would require a massive investment of capital, one that is not justified by a temporary price spike. This is also the time of year when people continue to forget that building a new refinery represents a time lag of at least a year, more likely a year and a half- show me a businessman who is willing to take that kind of risk and I'll show you an example of inbreeding.

[walker 0]

Hi Tex

It is not me who is saying speculation has driven up the price of oil. If you look I gave links to sources where as you have only supplied your invaluable opinion.

All available exess capacity for refining oil to petrol for use in the US if it is needed is supplied by Saudi Arabia. It would only need it if the US requirements were to increase.

US requirements might increase if say the Tax on gas guzling ATVs were decreased thus increasing waste of petrol it would take a spectacularly stupid US administration to do that risking electricity blackouts etc.

Quote[/b] ]Saudi Arabia has pledged to a world already sensitive to surging oil prices to keep crude flowing in the wake of Saturday's hostage-taking.

The state-run Saudi Aramco - responsible for 95% of Saudi oil production - has stated it is as committed as ever to "providing a reliable supply of oil to meet world energy demand".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3763129.stm

All in all there is no reason on earth for barrels of oil to be above the 25 to 30 dollars that OPEC supply it at. That increase in price to 40 dollars plus and the expectation that the speculators look for 50 dollar barrel for late June comes purely from speculators.

I repeat my quote from those henny pennys at Forbes

Quote[/b] ]Speculators betting on $50/barrel oil by summer

Reuters, 04.30.04, 2:14 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Speculators banking on crude oil prices going much higher than already lofty levels now, perhaps hitting $50 a barrel by summer, are raising the ante, bets in the crude oil options market showed Friday.

Those speculators, playing on the potential of oil supply being disrupted with violence in the Middle East on the rise, have bought crude oil options with strike prices of $40 and $50 on the June to October contracts, data from the NYMEX Web site show.http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/04/30/rtr1355431.html

I wonder what makes them feel it will rise to 50 dollars?

What other nasty crap have they seen comming over the horizon for late June?

Kind Regards Walker

[denoir 0]

Walker, oil speculators are observers. They are dettached from the price setting progress.

Basically the oil market looks like this:

Production --->OPEC--->Oil companies-->End consumer price. OPEC is the in theory only regulating element. Nobody is stopping you to take a tanker to Saudi and to buy all the oil that you want directly. The OPEC prices themselves depend on the production output and on how high profit margin they want. The oil companies handle the transport and distribution (in some cases refinement as well). They are however in competition with other oil companies, so you have market rules in play.

People speculating in oil prices are not in any way part of that process. Speculating on futures is just a high-risk form of investing - not very different from buying stocks. And you have to be good at predicting trends to know when to invest in oil futures or when to move that money to investments in the car industry. Buy & hold does not work with futures as they are time limited.

You must also understand that the future traders have nothing to do with the oil price. They deal in changes in price and levels in price. It has nothing to do with the actual oil.

Also, the link you are trying to establish betwen TBA and the interest of oil future traders does not hold at all. First of all, oil prices are a big campaign issue. Low oil prices is good for Bush. Second, his loyalties lie with the oil industry who do not benefit from high oil prices. What they need is a cheap (non-OPEC) source of oil which then they can sell with a higher profit margin. Also high oil prices motivate the research of alternative energy sources, which is not a very good thing for them.

[bn880 5]

Also, the link you are trying to establish betwen TBA and the interest of oil future traders does not hold at all. First of all, oil prices are a big campaign issue. Low oil prices is good for Bush. Second, his loyalties lie with the oil industry who do not benefit from high oil prices. What they need is a cheap (non-OPEC) source of oil which then they can sell with a higher profit margin. Also high oil prices motivate the research of alternative energy sources, which is not a very good thing for them.

So don't you think oil prices that drop just before the votes go in are good for Bush? To have this effect you have to first have higher prices... as we do now.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

It is not me who is saying speculation has driven up the price of oil. If you look I gave links to sources where as you have only supplied your invaluable opinion.

Quote[/b] ]According to NPR, one of the forces driving up gasoline prices are speculators in the oil futures market.

That's the only thing in the entire post that backs up what you said.

Quote[/b] ]All available exess capacity for refining oil to petrol for use in the US if it needed it is supplied by Saudi Arabia. It would only need it if the US requirements were to increase.

Not true- all refining of crude intended for the US takes place, get this, in the US. The cost of refining product overseas and then shipping it here would be prohibitive. As such, any significant changes in refinement capacity would come from domestic changes in output and efficiency.

Quote[/b] ]US requirements might increase if Tax on gas guzling ATVs were decreased thus increasing waste of petrol it would take a spectacularly stupid US administration to do that risking electricity blackouts etc.

Of course, but you're ignoring the fact that our requirements go up at this time of year anyway. It happened last year, it happened the year before that, and even the year before that. Even years when oil is spectacularly cheap (and the domestic industry, along with all its attendant local economies, is being decimated by unfairly low-priced foreign competition that mysteriously fails to draw the same anti-free trade outcry as job outsourcing does), the price goes up during the summer. It's simple supply and demand, Intro to Econ stuff. Supply stays constant while factors of demand pile on top of each other. The fact that the oil futures market is bidding so high right now is more a result of rising prices than a cause of them. Shit, with the Middle East as it is and domestic demand as it is (not to mention with the June 30th handover date for Iraq mysteriously coinciding with the bidding at $50 oil), I'd be kicking these investors in the ass if they weren't piling on. I mean come on, I'm an idiot with a high school diploma and even I can tell you that this is what the oil market is supposed to be doing- if I was a trader right now, I have every confidence that I'd be making a killing.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Saudi Arabia has pledged to a world already sensitive to surging oil prices to keep crude flowing in the wake of Saturday's hostage-taking.

The state-run Saudi Aramco - responsible for 95% of Saudi oil production - has stated it is as committed as ever to "providing a reliable supply of oil to meet world energy demand".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3763129.stm

All in all there is no reason on earth for barrels of oil to be above the 25 to 30 dollars that OPEC supply it at. That increase in price to 40 dollars plus and the expectation that the speculators look for 50 dollar barrel for late June comes purely from speculators.

Bullshit there isn't! When there's a a war going on just north of OPEC's breadbasket, and another of OPEC's top five producers is clocking in at one coup attempt every two weeks, plus the world's largest energy consumer is demanding more and more, I'm surprised that oil isn't even more expensive already.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Speculators betting on $50/barrel oil by summer

Reuters, 04.30.04, 2:14 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Speculators banking on crude oil prices going much higher than already lofty levels now, perhaps hitting $50 a barrel by summer, are raising the ante, bets in the crude oil options market showed Friday.

Those speculators, playing on the potential of oil supply being disrupted with violence in the Middle East on the rise, have bought crude oil options with strike prices of $40 and $50 on the June to October contracts, data from the NYMEX Web site show.http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/04/30/rtr1355431.html

I wonder what makes them feel it will rise to 50 dollars?

What other nasty crap have they seen comming over the horizon for late June?

Oh gee, I don't know, that might be the date of handover for Iraqi sovereignty? Just a guess. I mean c'mon, this is elementary stuff. Not to mention June and July are two of the most active months in the US for travel via automobiles. Plus amped up air-conditioning costs in the south and west coupled with what is projected to be one of the hottest summers in decades here in America, etc, etc.

What your problem is is that, when confronted with the problem of high gas prices, you go for an exotic solution when all the evidence points toward an entirely more ordinary explanation. In short, when you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras, go ahead and think horses.

[theavonlady 2]

@ May 31 2004,22:35)]Not true- all refining of crude intended for the US takes place, get this, in the US. The cost of refining product overseas and then shipping it here would be prohibitive.

Just a slight correction from the BW article I posted on the previous page:

Quote[/b] ]But the fact is, the main relief for consumers in recent years has come from imported gasoline, which accounts for around 10% of domestic supply. That's double the 5% of a decade ago.

Look how we're wasting precious words. What stocks should we be buying now, if it isn't too late?

[Milkman 1]

Doesn't this belong in your other conspiracy thread Walker?

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Doesn't this belong in your other conspiracy thread Walker?

I can't wait to find out how the Illuminati and Freemasons fit into all this.

[walker 0]

Hi all

@ Tex Since there is according to your own post enough capacity in the the US refining market to cover US demand. and since the oil was sold at between 25 to 30 dollars a barrel by OPEC to the speculators it is obvious there is a 10 to 15 dollars excess profit being made on it by speculators. Unless the tooth fairy took it.

It is also obvious there is enough oil in the Market or you would not be able to fill up at the pump.

Would you care to explain to us why the price has increased when supply is sufficient to cover the same demand?

At some point you may wish to include the word percieved in your answer.

Further since US oil Refineries by your own answer can only answer to the limit of current US demand any excess demand in the US must be met by the only major refiner with excess capacity if you would care to research it you will find this is state-run Saudi Aramco however there is no reason I can think of for the US to need more oil.

So it all comes down to perception no oil production has been harmed but a threat to it is percieved.

Perception is altered by stories that hit the news.

People who know such stories are about to happen can make a lot of money by betting the price will change in a particular direction.

If that knowledge is instinct and market understanding all well and good that is good judgement.

If that information is insider knowledge; such as information on comming millitary activity or a scandal or as apeared to happen before 9/11 with short call trades of UAL and AA stock from for knowledge of a terrorist attack, then that clearly wrong.

It is called insider trading and it is illegal.

@ Denoir oil Speculators are not detached from setting price otherwise they would not be making 10 to 15 dollars a barrel they are buyers sellers in the market ie they are part of it. If they do it right they buy cheap and sell expensive just like they are doing today.

One begins to question their luck when they make exceptional profits from uncanny choices for more than a year. Especialy when all the big expert producers were expecting less than 40 dollars a barrel and accounted accordingly.

Kind Regards Walker

[Major Fubar 0]

Previous (Iraq thread 3) thread

Continue discussion - same rules etc etc.

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ]Yeah, but you are Norwegian. It's natural that he feels more for his countrymen than for the other side. You won't find many Americans, Bush supporters or not that will feel equally or more sorry for the resistance fighters.

denoir that`s not necesary true.Sure every person has a certain degree of bias when it comes to their own countrymen but let me give you my own example.

A Romanian bodyguard was killed a few months ago by Al-Sadr militia in an ambush.That guy was in Iraq because he didn`t have enough money to feed his familly,he was killed because he was travelling with an American convoy.I felt sorry for him and his cause,but I didn`t want the Iraqis who killed him to "burn in everlasting hell".

You just have to think if I was an Iraqi and...(my wife and daughters were killed in an air bombing or my brother tortured in Abu Gharib or my little niece shot in the car because she didn`t see the checkpoint) what would i have done?

Wilco`s comments assured me that there are still people who think the world is black and white,heaven is only for the US soldiers because God is on their side and the Iraqis who tried to protect their homeland and raised their arms against the heroic Americans are doomed to burn in hell.

P.S Mods isn`t a little bit more substance mandatory on this forums?If any other forum member would have said "Shall the Americans who killed 50,000 Iraqis burn in everlasting hell" he would have been banned faster then he could have noticed it.I am particulary offended by Wilco`s comment,his countrymen or not this is no way to act on a civilised forum imo.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]You just have to think if I was an Iraqi and...(my wife and daughters were killed in an air bombing or my brother tortured in Abu Gharib or my little niece shot in the car because she didn`t see the checkpoint) what would i have done?

Why are there checkpoints or air bombings or incidents that happened at Abu Gharib? If some those people are fighting against the coalition because of this, they are fighting against the wrong people.