Posted on 12/07/2008 12:50:34 AM PST by blueplum
"A consensus has formed for a significant reduction of production levels" by the 14-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC President Chakib Khelil told The Associated Press....An output decision that startles markets would help bolster plunging oil rates, Khelil said. "The best way is to surprise them," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.aol.com ...
So this will be like 76-80 all over again?
Everyone is confidently pushing on strings these days. The surprise will be that this won’t have any effect for a long time.
Oh-oh... the Dem’s tax-hike on gasoline will have to be much larger.
Any tax at the pump just sucks money out of our pockets and accomplishes nothing else in return.
Yup, I have to agree......the rich and powerful and our government have rode the delusional fraudulent trail horse to death. The horse is dead and no matter how much money they print, no one for hundreds of miles has one to sell.
OPEC members have never been all that good with sticking to production limits.
Bluff. They’ll all agree publicly, then keep pumping under the table. They’re addicted to the cashflow.
The problem with any cartel is the temptation for the members to cheat on the quotas. Honor amongst thieves is a lot rarer commodity that oil.
Someone like Mr. Chavez who really needs the money gets really tempted to covertly increase output if the Saudis, for example, decrease it.
Reducing quotas isn’t the same as reducing production.
I think some of there economy has been based on a 80-100 dollar a barrel figure, and wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the target. The question is can they make cuts to boost the price without creating further slowdowns in the world economy and biting the hand that feeds them.
Like it or not, the ball is in their court, so to speak.
With millions of people not having jobs to travel to, there won’t be much demand for their over-priced product. Since it costs about $3/bbl for them to produce it, OPEC could still make a hefty profit at $10/bbl. Too bad the fall in oil prices will destroy the alternative fuels industry once again, however.
Yup.
It happens every time oil prices are falling. You see, the countries like Iran, and Venezuela have made huge spending commitments (for huge arms purchases from Russia for example), that they simply gotta have lots of cash to carry out. With prices falling sharply, they simply have to cheap by producing more oil, so they can make enough money for their needs.
I’m still trying to figure out how in the heck the oil prices could have taken such a tremendous swing - capitalism didn’t drive it. While many pooh-poohed the speculators, I think that is a big part of what happened. When the “Non-traditional” (banks, insurers, etc.) decided to take a ride on the rising prices and drive them higher, they blew the oil system out of the water too, which is hurting them more now after the housing debacle. I can’t wait to see how the chosen one (his handlers) decides to screw us in this area come January.
We could cut down to needing one barrel of oil a yeaqr from these ****ers and they’d try to charge us 70B for that one barrel of oil. We need to totally ban the importation of oil and then drill EVERYWHERE.
Why can’t we go after them with the Sherman Anti-trust Act? Put it to good use for ONCE.
They have their own welfare states which they need to support. If they tell their Arab citizens that they actually have to WORK, they risk insurrection.
What the US needs is a graduated tariff on imported oil, which would be based on the difference between (say) $80 and the world spot price of oil. This way we keep incentives for domestic production of oil.
In recessions on the '70's and 80's I actually saw emptier highways at rush hour. Many people who got used to low gas prices moved into the burbs, far from work. The lack of these long distance daily communters is significant.
As you say, though, the alternative energy people will be pinched. At my company, after the (so-called) gas shortages of the '70's ended, we had refugees join us from Tycho Solar.
They can pooh-pooh it all they want, it is what happened, the speculators stole about 500B out of the economy.
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