Oh brother, Blog Lord Steve Soto. You can't possibly believe half of what you type. I just don't think it's possible.

One could lose a lot of money following the recommendations from Goldman Sachs' analysts.

Just a heads up. Look at the head fake on oil after that $105 tout. Looks like somebody unloaded some oil futures on some unsuspecting somebody else. That's how the game is played, I guess.

Watch out for tornados on the commute home, Blog Lord.

I think that they will turn to ripping up the artic and the ocean floors for Methane Hydrates. Much more fuel there then all other known reserves by most guesstimates. And more than enough to teraform this place into Venus by other guesstimates.

I need to go see some glaciers, while we still have them...

PS - Delay Stay! (Until we can make the GOP go away!)

You're right of course Muck; you know so much more than a popsicle stand like Goldman Sachs.

Anyway, have a good weekend and we'll both watch out for tornadoes.

When there are possible problems with supplies of essential products, intelligent people make contingency plans. Other people, like their heroes in the Republican Party, go into denial and sarcasm.

Actually, I think the $105 prediction was BS, too. Note the fine print: it was predicated on if Saudi oil production were to crater.

praktike:

Can you show me where Arjun Murti and others based their analysis on a cratering of Saudi oil production? Goldman's critics did a lot of bashing assuming that the analysis was based on a Saudi disruption, but not one of them offered proof that the Goldman analysis actually said that. And most of the criticisms I saw were based on arguments having to do with monetary policy and not supply and demand concerns. So if you have a citation from Goldman where they say their analysis was based on a Saudi disruption, then please share the link.

Of course, in a rationale and intelligent world, people would unite in solving the problem. I guess it is easier to indulge ones self in taking other countries by force and killing it's population to ensure that SUVs will continue to roll off the assembly line.

An interesting article for you...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5EF86883-8CDB-49B5-9A07-5759205A9DBE.htm

and guess who's joining in on the ChevTex Nigerian project...hmmmm....can you say, Cheney's folks?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050408/halliburton_joint_venture.html?.v=1

We're not at "peak oil" yet, we're at "peak cheap oil." There is still stuff to get at, but the cost escalates from here on. Natural gas is more plentiful than ever and costs more than ever. Why? Greed. When it all comes down we'll eat the oil executives and their children. They go great with fava beans and a nice chianti.

I'm not too worried (except for the environmental impact and wars of domination). We're at a real tipping point where renewable becomes a realistic alternative. Suck the carbon out of the air to grow plants, burn the plant residue and put the carbon back. Zero-sum! Gotta love it.

$5/gal gas beats Kyoto any day.

There is actually some credible evidence that Peak Oil is here: the Saudis (who have the greatest oil reserves) lifted production in the last few months by 500,000 barrels a day, but it turned out this extra production was a very heavy, sulfur laden crude, not the light sweet variety. This heavy stuff requires much more processing to generate gasoline, for example.

The upshot is that the Saudis appear to be 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' so to speak, in going after extra production. The experts say that sure, there's still a lot of oil around, but that after the peak is reached, it becomes more difficult and more expensive to pump the oil out. In addition, the quality of the oil drops because the light stuff is the easiest and the first to rise from the wells.

There is absolutely no doubt that oil prices have nowhere to go but up, because it is a finite resource and the world has developed such a hard-core addiction, with no let-up in sight.

As I often say in these blogs, prepare for a 40 year recession/depression, during which your standard of living will gradually but substantially erode, a result of paying up for everything that oil and gas contribute to (virtually all food, fuel, plastics, rubber, medicines, auto products, shelter).

Steve, keep the message coming, it is extremely important.

We may be reaching an economic and technological version of peak oil, but fossil fuels are a myth. We're not running out of hydrocarbons, I think just our ability to reach them with the technology currently available. The effects are the same, though, so it makes no difference to the economy, the world, nor to the environmental damage.

For once I agree totally with Muckdog: The $105 a barrel oil quote was a scam. Wonder who the 'bigger fool' was. Personally I only invest in things I know a little about and I don't pretend to be an energy man.

Hey, hey ,he, he
Glad it wasn't me!
This is why we shouldn't privatize Social Security.

rlprather:

Why do you think it was a scam, and what evidence have you seen of that?

The Goldman prediction was based on peak oil and we are already there. Anybody who thinks otherwise simply hasn't been paying attention and isn't credible.

I'm with Steve here. I also think the Unocal acquisition accomplishes two other goals. First, most of the major oil companies have overstated their reserves to keep prices high (I'd make an exception for Shell, which has already lowered its reserves numbers a couple of times this year, but they keep doing it again, so maybe the truth is they've got NO oil). It's rather important for those that know their reserve statements are inflated to actually GET reserves before their stock numbers go down. Same thing with buying up their own stock--it's insurance for the time when they're going to be doing really crazy things to stay in business and don't want any pesky stockholders intervening.

Another reason, I suspect, is it gives them a way to do really crummy things to get its oil. Unocal has had a really risky approach in the last several years, going places (Burma and Central Asia) that others find risky. Well, you buy Unocal and you buy some risktakers at a time when it will become more acceptable to take such risks.

Steve,

I know there is such a thing as a good faith prediction yet I don't think $28 a barrel oil is coming like at least 'experrt' does. My gut tells me that there's a lot of 'funk' going on with energy now just like there was during the California electricity 'crises' of 2000-01. I seem to remember that during that 'crises' most conservatives tried to claim that it was just the market at work and they even tried to blame California's enviromental laws. Then we learned about a little ole' Texas company called Enron and the truth slowly came out. Is someone getting scammed? We'll see in time. Is someone getting soaked? We all are when we fill the tank.

We simply must get going on the cloning of dinosaurs and the building of processing plants to turn them into oil.

OIl is now back down to where it was before Goldman Sachs came down from The Mount with their $105 oil price prediction. It's like it didn't even happen, except for a one or two day panic reaction to an analyst report.

Somebody made some money on that.
Somebody lost some money on that.

Somebody should look into that.

Again I say that muck and I approach this issue from different perspectives but we reach the same conclusion.

Peak oil is the really, really bad upcoming scenario, where demand increases while supply decreases. The end of cheap oil comes earlier, however, when the demand and supply curves cross. Demand is increasing faster than supply right now, and the curves are basically starting to cross already. That means from now on, it's a bidding war for oil between the U.S., China, and India.

While I did not express my rant til later, I too question the Bush energy policy. After listening to President Bush speak this Thursday evening, April 28, 2005, in his rare prime-time press conference, I was, once again struck. His logic belies and prompted me to express my own.

LOGIC OF BUSH BELIES. OIL, BUSH, THE BIG PUSH! ©
The United States is the world's largest consumer of oil. Citizens of this country comprise six percent of the global population and yet, they, we, use 25 percent of the Earth's oil. In other words, little more than 5 percent of the people worldwide use one quarter of all the petroleum resources.

As of 2002, 65.4 percent of the proven overall reserves were located in The Middle East. In the same year, it was determined that Central and South America held 9 percent. What is now Russia, formerly the Soviet Union held 7 percent, and lagging far behind was the United States. America was able to boast a whooping 2.9 percent of proven reserves. Therefore, we the people of the United States of America will never be able to secure oil independence. Capable as we may be, we do not have the capacity to generate enough oil to meet our glut!