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Even as Western officials try to tamp-down the drums of war with Iran amid spiking oil prices, Saudi Arabia says it is ready to go to war to defend its interests. Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal told delegates at a Gulf Cooperation Council conference that Riyahd will use "all available options" to defend itself against Iranian "threats" that might trigger "unwanted military confrontation." Al-Faisal's comments to the conference in Bahrain late on Tuesday came after Tehran demanded Riyadh rethink its offer to make up for any oil lost to world markets as a result of threatened curbs on...

The pieces and policies for potential conflict in the Persian Gulf are seemingly drawing inexorably together. Since 24 December the Iranian Navy has been holding its ten-day Velayat 90 naval exercises, covering an area in the Arabian Sea stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden. The day the maneuvers opened Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told a press conference that the exercises were intended to show "Iran's military prowess and defense capabilities in international waters, convey a message of peace and friendship to regional countries, and test...

<p>“We face the threats from rising powers — China, India, others — that we have to always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to a shipyard in Groton, Conn., where he toured a submarine, the Mississippi, in the final stages of construction.</p>

Muammar Gadhaffi’s 42 year-old regime is in its death rattle – maybe today, maybe tomorrow, his administration that has ruled Libya with a quixotic and brutal hand is about to pass, in Trotsky’s piquant phrase, “into the dustbin of history,” prompting the question “what next?” The glittering prize is Libya’s 1.6 million barrels per day output of high quality crude, which accounted for about 2 percent of global oil output drawn from Africa's largest oil reserves, whose exports have been stymied since the NATO-led campaign began six months ago. Projecting into the future, analysts believe that has reserves to sustain...

Like many of you, I am often unhappy with our political leaders. One thing that annoys me the most is that many will say or do just about anything to get elected. By now, you have surely heard the news that Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has promised a return to $2/gallon gasoline if she is elected president: GOP candidate Michele Bachmann: I'll bring back $2 gas _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Michele Bachmann has a promise: $2 gas. "Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again," Bachmann told a crowd Tuesday in...

News reports continue to show the progressive demise of the Qaddafi regime in Libya. Rebel forces have apparently taken more of the country’s oil refining (Zawiya) and processing infrastructure (Brega). Most observers give the Qaddafi regime limited time before a full regime change takes place in Libya. Watch what happens to oil prices if and when the Qaddafis lose and leave. In short order, Libyan oil production will ramp up. As it does, oil prices in world markets will fall and oil futures markets will reflect the expected increase in production of oil from Libya. The key prices to watch...

Nothing gives better proof of a sure and certain, rapidly growing global food shortage than the simplest look at how commodity markets have been responding to the US debt crisis, the coming devaluation of the US dollar, and the merited exposure of Barack Obama as a loser. Stripping away the short covering, the dollar crisis, inflation fear and all the rest, we find that food prices are resisting a lot better than oil prices, to the rising likelihood of recession in the western world, and maybe also global economic recession. If food products were "pure commodities", like oil basically is,...

FREDERICK, MD - One local industry that is peaking during this down economy is field corn. According to the Maryland Office of Economic Development, the price of a bushel of the cash crop is the highest its ever been. Eddie Mercer's 4,500 acre farm has been his livelihood for nearly 45 years and he says he has never seen the price of corn reach this level. "This is the ultimate high," says Eddie Mercer, President and Owner of Eddie Mercer Agri-Services Inc. "The most time we've ever sold corn is maybe in the $5, but never in the $8 range."...

ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson, 59, and General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt, 55, are about the same age. They both head iconic U.S. companies. Last year, the two chief executive officers made about the same amount of money, with Tillerson at $21 million and Immelt $19.6 million. Both men are leading figures in the energy business. That's obvious in Tillerson's case, but Immelt's GE is a major player in the oilfield services sector. In addition, GE controls about 40 percent of the global market for gas turbines. Overall, more than a quarter of GE's revenues now come from what the company calls "energy...

Crude oil futures pared gains in choppy trade on Thursday, after the International Energy Agency warned that elevated oil prices could derail the global economic recovery. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at USD100.28 a barrel during European morning trade, easing up 0.11%. It earlier rose by as much as 1% to a daily high of USD101.24 a barrel. The governing board of the International Energy Agency expressed “serious concern” that there were growing signs that the rise in oil prices was affecting the global economic recovery by widening global imbalances...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures added to gains Wednesday after a government inventories report showed supplies of crude unchanged for the week ended May 13. Oil for June delivery /quotes/comstock/21n!f:cl\m11 CLM11 +2.63% advanced $2.30, or 2.4%, to $99.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

As the petroleum market spins its wheel of fortune daily, drivers can't seem to catch a break. Crude prices had been headed for the moon, then they crashed 15 percent last week, taking the worst weekly price beating since 2008. Oil made up a bit of that ground on Monday, but at the pumps drivers have seen no relief from last week's tumble in crude oil prices. The pump price of gasoline, also up slightly Monday, continues to wander around like a child lost at the fair, seemingly unattached to the price of crude. You could say we were in...

Like a roller coaster ride, 2011 saw oil prices climb gradually, only to fall dramatically this last week. Here I offer my thoughts on some of the key contributing factors. Let's begin with the relation between oil prices and the exchange rate. If the dollar depreciates by 1%, the dollar price of oil would have to go up 1% to keep the price paid outside the United States constant. This is a bit simplistic, one reason being that there is usually some third factor, such as a rise in incomes outside the United States, that is causing a change in...

Obama's worst enemy is Obama, and his downfall will commence when voters awaken to the fact that many of his current "crises" -- and all the most critical ones -- are self-inflicted. They don't simply come out of nowhere, in the form of "events," unforeseen and random, but are generated through acts of omission or commission by none other than Obama himself. This creates an opening that must not be overlooked by the GOP candidate, whoever that may be. The gas crisis is something that, in its impact on the daily life of voters, should have a serious effect on...

The price of crude oil has dropped sharply this morning with both Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate Crude dropping over $4/barrel. As of 11:10 EDT, Brent Crude has sunk $4.34/bl to $116.41 while WTI Crude has dropped $4.67 to $104.57/bl.

Few issues focus the public’s attention on politics like the price of gasoline. It keeps going up, the public wants relief, and politicians are held accountable for not fixing the situation. Yet to solve the problem, you first need to know the cause of the illness. Why do gasoline prices keep going up? Is it because Congress and President Bush have not fashioned energy policies to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Clearly that’s part of the answer..... {....] But that’s not the entire story. The immediate cause of rising oil prices is the weak dollar. Oil-producing countries are requiring...

NEW YORK - President Barack Obama said on Thursday the U.S. attorney general was assembling a team to root out any fraud and manipulation in the oil markets that might be contributing to higher U.S. gasoline prices. Earlier, the Justice Department announced the working group, which will include representatives from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Justice and Treasury. Rising fuel costs have raised concerns about the strain on the economic recovery, with U.S. gasoline prices now averaging over $3.80...

There is a piece of doggerel which goes: They said it couldn’t be done. So I went right to it -- that thing they said Couldn’t be done. And I couldn’t do it. And that is the way it has been with presidents since the 1973 oil crisis. All of them -- from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, who has just joined the club -- have wrung their hands and exhorted Americans to use less oil in general and less foreign oil in particular. Nixon had his commerce secretary, Peter G. Peterson (he of enormous wealth these days), promise far...

Oil's surge to more than $105 per barrel -- which has caused the average price of unleaded regular to jump more than 40 cents in less than a month to about $3.50 per gallon -- is rooted more in psychology than in fundamentals. Globally, there's no shortage of oil, nor any lack of gasoline in the U.S., but traders' fears that the civil unrest in minor oil exporter Libya may spread to major oil exporters Saudi Arabia or Iran has led an oil price spike, led by market speculators and large end users of oil. However, the U.S. government is...

WASHINGTON - White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on Sunday the Obama administration is considering tapping into the US strategic oil reserve as one way to help ease soaring oil prices. Speaking on NBC television's "Meet the Press," Daley said: "We are looking at the options. The issue of the reserves is one we are considering. ... All matters have to be on the table." There has been support among Senate Democrats for tapping the reserves. Senator Jay Rockefeller on Thursday became the third Democrat to ask President Barack Obama to tap America's emergency oil supply to cool...

If you are old enough, and wise enough, to remember the Jimmy Carter years then you remember the fiasco that was his administration. But mostly, you will remember the so-called gas shortage or oil crisis with vehicles lined up for blocks waiting to buy gas. Remember the days when you could buy gas and the days you could not buy gas? Back in those days, I was a credentialed broadcast news reporter. And something did not “smell” right. After a few weeks of snooping, nobody was able to convince me the gas shortage was real. I spoke to a propane...

Nothing like a little kerosene on the fire. Nomura Securities says that if Algeria joins Libya in the land of chaos, oil prices could shoot to $220 a barrel. That’s in a worst-case scenario, the investment bank adds unhelpfully. To back up that headline grabber, Nomura compares the current situation to the 1990-91 Gulf War. During that time, oil prices rose 130% in two months, according to our friends at Dow Jones. Nomura defends the comparison by saying “we could be underestimating this as speculative activities were largely not present in 1990-91.” Tagging onto the high-price meme, Chesapeake Energy’s CEO...

Award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave tells Newsmax that the increasingly volatile situation in the Middle East could push the price of oil quickly to $300 or even $400 a barrel. Such a price would mean a gallon of gasoline costing as much as $15 at American pumps, perhaps higher depending on local, state and federal taxes, according to analysts interviewed by Newsmax. De Borchgrave, who has interviewed Moammar Gadhafi six times, also says the Libyan leader is manic-depressive who is going through a manic phrase where he is “taking on the world.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Wednesday said higher oil prices caused by Middle East unrest must be monitored but would not stall the U.S. recovery, while reiterating a warning on the risks posed by global imbalances. "Thus far, they're up, but we're not forecasting -- and you haven't seen the private forecasters forecasting -- that at these levels they would derail the recovery," said top White House economist Austan Goolsbee. U.S. crude oil reached a 28-month high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday as violence in OPEC producer Libya caused output there to be reduced and investors bet...

Stagflation 2011: Why It Is Here And Why It Is Going To Be Very PainfulFeburary 23, 2011 Are you ready for an economy that has high inflation and high unemployment at the same time? Well, welcome to "Stagflation 2011". Stagflation exists when inflation and unemployment are both at high levels at the same time. Of course we all know about the high unemployment situation already. Gallup's daily tracking poll says that the U.S. unemployment rate has been hovering around 10 percent all year so far. But now thanks to rapidly rising food prices and the exploding price of oil, rampant...

.S. crude oil prices soared by 8.5 percent Tuesday, stunning financial markets. The financial media fretted that the oil price shock from the Middle East turmoil would slow or stop the fragile economic recovery. Crude oil prices soared even though gas prices at the pump are already the highest in any February since 1990. The reaction was swift, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 178 points (1.4 percent) and NASDAQ and S&P 500 both also falling by more than 2 percent. This morning, with Libya teetering on the brink of civil war, gas prices continued rising. While...

It has been a long wait for “peak oilers,” whose passionate belief is that the world will run out of oil in coming years, sending prices through the roof. This splinter religion came into being in 1956 when M. King Hubbert produced some simple supply/demand charts showing that US reserves of Texas tea would dry up by 1965-70, forcing a heavy reliance on imports with which we have become all too familiar. This was later expanded globally, implying that Western civilization would come to a grinding halt. It all seemed very prescient, when in 1973 OPEC raised prices from $3/barrel...

World food prices continued to rise drastically in December and are still escalating thus far in 2011, with no end in sight. According to the United Nations, the prices are now close to the crisis levels of 2007. The New York Times reports: "Prices are expected to remain high this year, prompting concern that the world may be approaching another crisis, although economists cautioned that many factors, like adequate stockpiles of key grains, could prevent a serious problem." Data of commodity prices in the world export market have been measured by the United Nations. The UN asserts that wealthy nations...

I believe Obama's team is on record saying no border fence until Amnesty, so it's not beyond their boundaries to use a real human tragedy for political gain. I am also pretty sure Obama said he's been in control since "Day 1" on the oil spill. Now, the moment the "Oil Drilling Ban" is overturned a ROV knocks the cap off the oil well and "we have a full scale out of control leak again". Anybody buying it? I don't have a newsletter you can subscribe to but I am logged in ...

If Oil Prices Are Telling Us Anything, The World Economy Is In For A Rough Ride Joe Weisenthal May. 15, 2010, 10:23 AM Forget European banks for the moment. We know why they're troubled. Check out oil. StockCharts.com:Image: StockCharts.com It took a huge leg down on Friday, and if you're the type who cares about lines and technicals, it's now well below the 200-day moving average, which screams bear market (and would also seem to scream deflation). Of course, it's been impressively volatile, and was this low right after Scott Brown. Now on the other hand, investors continue to sing...

The BP Spill: Tuesday on Capitol Hill, oil executives were subjected to the Senate's latest show trial. Senators did not say the accident in federal waters was a federal responsibility or that nature spills more oil every day. The morning hearing by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and the afternoon session before California Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environmental and Public Works Committee prove White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's dictum that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste — especially when your goal is exploiting the Deepwater Horizon disaster...

Energy: The administration has banned new offshore drilling until the Gulf oil spill is investigated. Was its heart in it anyway? It seems environmental concerns apply only to certain forms of energy. No one pays much attention to the aquatic "dead zones" that have appeared off our shores at the mouths of our rivers due to agricultural runoff created by mandates for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol is green energy, good energy — never mind that such biofuels drive up food prices, increase hunger around the world and damage the environment in their own way. The explosion that blew apart an oil...

Average petrol prices have risen to an all-time high of 120p a litre, eclipsing the previous peak of 119.7p seen in July 2008, new figures show. Revealing the data, the RAC said it was a "dark day for motorists". The record high is partly down to soaring wholesale costs, with the price of oil hitting an 18-month high earlier this week. UK drivers have also been hit by the weaker pound pushing up wholesale petrol costs, as well as fuel duty hikes from the Government.

Obama's energy policy in general, and oil in particular, is beginning to make Americans feel nostalgic for the "good old days" when Jimmy Carter was doing his best to destroy the domestic energy industry

Back in the days when US oil demand controlled the price of oil, a massive recession in the United States would have sent oil to 12.00 dollars a barrel. That era, which ended last decade, was defined by ongoing spare capacity in OPEC, low-cost oil in Non-OPEC, and nascent demand for oil in the developing world. That was then, and this is now. And so it’s rather quaint that the energy analysts from that previous era still gather each week on American financial TV, to discuss the inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma. Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma? The US has been removing...

Amid rising gasoline prices and falling corn prices, ethanol may be poised for a comeback of sorts, even if only a temporary one. Even though conventional wisdom is that crude has to reach about $100 a barrel before ethanol is economical, compared to current prices of about $80 a barrel, ample supplies of ethanol have widened the price differential between gasoline and ethanol to more than 60 cents a gallon. When combined with the 45-cent-a-gallon excise tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline, that creates a differential well above $1 a gallon, and has boosted recent blending volumes by some...

Last month, I explained in an article how and why the world is approaching a worldwide peak in oil production sometime in the next decade. Although there are large implications throughout the economy, I want to say upfront that I do not think this will bring on Armageddon. Oil prices that are significantly higher than earlier in our lifetimes will bring about great change, yet I firmly believe that our economy has the ability to successfully adapt. Despite the strong headwind oil scarcity will create, I am still an optimist. I have structured this article by segmenting the "winners" and...

A major moratorium on U.S. domestic oil and gas exploration expired in 2008, yet its extension is now being considered. Thing is, despite vigorous alternative energy efforts, the U.S. will remain extremely dependent on fossil fuels through 2030. This is even assuming that the U.S. pushes alternative energy at the same time, according to a report on the moratorium by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Gas Technology Institute (GTI). Which means that if renewed environmental bans prevent American energy demands from being met domestically, the country will be forced to import its fossil fuel needs. This could cost...

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi opened two new missile production plants on Saturday, just three days after Iran fired a rocket carrying live animals into space, state television reported. The plants will produce a ground-to-air missile dubbed the Qaem (Rising) and a surface-to-surface missile dubbed Toofan 5 (Storm), state television reported. The Qaem is designed to target helicopters at low and medium altitudes, it added. Iran unveiled the new plants as part of its celebrations for the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution later this month. On Wednesday, Iran launched a capsule carrying turtles, rats and worms aboard its Kavoshgar 3...

Do hedge funds have an impact on energy trading? While the answer might seem intuitive, the debate as to whether they actually do has come to resemble the medieval theological dispute about how many angels can dance on the head of the pin. Because, like angels, many trades in energy futures are invisible, and it is often not possible to pinpoint where they take place. And yet, for most of us, including lawmakers on Capitol Hill, it seems obvious that when hedge funds buy and sell billions of dollars worth of oil and gas futures, it must be having an...

Interesting piece on Crude oil – it’s actually quite a complex substance: Some people arbitrarily speak about oil as if it is a single, indistinguishably homogenous substance without any unique differentiation, but this is actually not the case at all! In fact, there are many different kinds of oil. In its natural, unrefined state, crude oil ranges in density and consistency, from very thin, light weight and volatile fluidity to an extremely thick, semi-solid heavy weight oil. There is also a tremendous gradation in the color that the oil extracted from the ground exhibits, ranging all the way from a...

The Climate and Health Council, a collaboration of worldwide health organizations including the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine, believes there is a direct link between climate change and better health. Their controversial plan would see GPs and nurses give out advice to their patients on how to lower their carbon footprint. The Council believes that climate change “threatens to radically undermine the health of all peoples”. It believes health professionals are ideally placed to promote change because “we have ethical responsibility…..as well as the capacity to influence people and our...

Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. Domestic oil refiners kept up their attack Wednesday of climate legislation, saying a Senate bill under consideration could increase gas prices. The group, among the fiercest critics of the measure, said the proposal could add 77 cents a gallon, or around 30 percent above today’s prices. Democrats on a key Senate panel shot back, saying the industry’s estimate is based on an inflated projection of the price of permits companies will have to hold to cover their carbon emissions. A...

U.S. consumers turned decidedly more pessimistic in October, according to a report released Tuesday, with households increasingly worried about job prospects. The Conference Board, a private research group, said its monthly Consumer Confidence Index fell to 47.7 this month, from a revised 53.4 in September, which was originally reported as 53.1. The current month's reading was well below economists' projections of 53.2, according to a survey conducted by Dow Jones Newswires. The downturn in consumer confidence at this stage of the recovery is to be expected, as it has occurred in previous recoveries (please see chart below), and does not...

Crude-oil futures rose Monday for an eighth straight session, ending at a new one-year high near $80 a barrel as a weaker dollar and rising U.S. stocks stirred more bullish sentiment among energy traders. Crude for November delivery gained $1.08, or 1.4%, to $79.61 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange,

Since taking office as the President of the United States, President Obama has encountered crisis after crisis. His next major crisis will be oil prices. Read full article... http://newsflavor.com/politics/international-relations/next-major-obama-crisis/

BASHING “speculators” is a popular pastime for American politicians trying to explain high and volatile oil prices. But whether speculation has really been responsible for spiking prices is a controversial issue. In 2008 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a report dismissing the role of speculators in last year’s startling run-up in prices. But banks, hedge funds and others who bet on oil (without a use for the stuff itself) still face limits on the positions they can take, if Gary Gensler, the new CFTC head, can show that their influence in markets does harm. On September 4th the...

Stimulus: Brazil, a leader in the use of biofuels such as ethanol and in the face of falling oil prices, still plans to spend huge sums to expand its offshore oil resources. Drilling rigs are infrastructure too.With oil prices scraping the bottom of the barrel, pun intended, there wouldn't appear to be much incentive to pursue the development of new oil resources. And in tough economic times worldwide, the necessary investment required would appear to be prohibitive. As the U.S. seeks to get its economy going by building roads, bridges and bicycle paths, Brazil has decided to create jobs and...

As Palin pointed out to Salazar, the USGS assessment "estimates that Arctic Alaska has mean technically recoverable resources of approximately 30 billion barrels of oil, 6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 221 trillion cubic feet of conventional natural gas."

A drop from an eight-month intraday high of $73.23 earlier this month accelerated after the World Bank said it expected the global economy to shrink by 2.9 percent this year, much worse than its March prediction for a contraction of 1.7 percent. The bank also lowered its 2010 growth forecast to 1.7 percent from 2 percent.