So, I guess this means when the oil companies and countries have enough money, the price will come down. Right?
Shell CEO says record oil not due to shortage
Oil prices at a record high above $135 a barrel are rising due to market sentiment rather than a shortage of supply, Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive said on Thursday.
U.S. crude oil hit an all-time peak on Thursday, climbing to $135.09, lifted by concern about long-term supply and a host of predictions of further rises from influential investment banks and investors.
“What we say and what we see is there are no physical shortages,” Shell’s Jeroen van der Veer told Reuters television. He runs the world’s second-largest fully publicly traded oil firm by market value.
“There are no tankers waiting in the Middle East, there are no cars waiting at gasoline stations because they are out of stock. This has to do with psychology in the markets and you cannot forecast psychology”.
His view that there are no shortages chimes with that of other oil producers, such as members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Others, such as the U.S. government, say supply is tight.
Its the free market.
Can anyone identify what the issue here is?
We pay more for bottled water and Starbucks. This is more a story that people want everything as cheap as possible so they don’t have to make harder decisions.
ALL of these stories should feed into the reality that USA and Western Governments have done nothing for 40 years to develop energy independence==easier to blame the sellers.
Stupid rabbits.
I know this sounds evil, but although the high gas prices suck I get a big kick out of the crying of the owners of various types of Land Whales.
The prices of SUVs and other Land Whales have dropped like a rock leading to comical situations where a Land Whale owner needs to ditch it but since no one is buying, often the trade-in value of the vehicle is only 50% or less of the loan payoff.
Buyers remorse for those that shouldn’t have been so wasteful of our natural resources.
Well of course there’s no cars waiting in line. That’s because Jimmy Cartr isn’t President dictating prices to charge for gasoline.
If Congress set prices at $1 a gallon, there will be lines.
Am I the only one who thinks the market is purposely being manipulated to boost the profits of oil company shareholders and investors. They are testing the waters to see what the American driver is willing to spend. This will go on as long as we keep buying and buying. Once that slows down, then watch the price drop.
#4–gq==you have just described the daily operation of a free market. Do you find sellers trying to maximize their profit “sinister” in some way???? Thats how the free market is SUPPOSED to act.
Times are tough when reality dawns.
Of course the markets are being manipulated. It’s how you make massive profits when there’s no one to stop you. In a true free market, there would be competition which would stabilize prices when, as now, there is no shortage of product. Instead, the only competition is how high the cartels and their partners, the oil companies, can jack up prices to make more money before regulation does occur. Except it won’t as long as oilman Bushie is in office. After the election with a Demo in the WH, that’s when the hammer falls and prices will be brought down one way or another. In other words, they’re getting while the getting is good, to quote an old expression. And right now, the getting is REAL good.
6-
You’re delusional if you think that oil prices will drop if a democrat takes office.
And I hate paying $4 a gallon like the next guy, but in a free market, it’s my choice to do so. Everything has a cost, and choosing to run on gas instead of taking public transit, or riding my bike, I choose to pay $4 a gallon for gas.
The loudest complainers about oil companies’ profits are those clowns who refinanced their homes to pay for a huge, resource-chugging truck or SUV and now are upside down in both their home and vehicle. Stupid people making stupid decisions are having those decisions come home to roost, and I can only say “it’s about time!”
So the House just passed a law to sue OPEC for high prices. You are liable if you restrict production in a way that raises prices. Sounds to me like we can start by suing Congress for restricting drilling.
>>That’s because Jimmy Cartr isn’t President
>>dictating prices to charge for gasoline.
I don’t remember Jimmy “dictating” prices. I remember him wearing sweaters and keeping the heat turned down (fucking Commie!), but since when do presidents dictate gas prices? Even the Chimperor-in-Chief can’t dictate gas prices (no matter how many times he tongues the guys from the House of Saud), otherwise gas would be going for $0.95/gal.
>>Sounds to me like we can start by suing
>>Congress for restricting drilling.
Get a bike, MikeN. Or a skateboard. Destroying one of the few remaining natural wilderness sites in the world so that people can cut down on the cost of running their 7mpg Humpers is about the dumbest thing a Dumbya supporter could come up with. Sell the gas-guzzler on eBay and buy a Smart Car or a Prius. Sheesh.
I drive an suv, Tahoe to be exact and I’m not getting rid of it any time soon I love it and I’m paying for it $83.00 to fill up Thurs. It is called freedom you liberal tools, I have the freedom to drive what I choose as long as I can pay for it and I dont need some tree hugging nanny state to tell me what I can drive
ohh for the tree hugging fools who don’t want to drill in anwr check this out
http://tinyurl.com/4zrpc2
you all claimed the Alaska pipe line would ruin the wild life and kill caribou well guess what it didn’t and neither will anwr
you want oil prices to come down stop the speculators make the margin fees 25% TO 50% not the 2%-5% to control a margin and the price will crater
I’m trying to learn how to fly like Tom Cruise. He might seam as dumb as a box of rocks, but he has super powers. Hail Xenu!
#11–Pmitchell==I agree with you entirely. I just wish I had the same freedom to buy a 100mpg city only vehicle. Even while a few models are made, none are street legal.
So, voting with dollars is a valid but limited concept when the choices are limited by law.
I’m old enough to remember the gas crisis of the 1970’s. Everyone likes to blame Carter for everything that went wrong in the 1970’s.
But what people forgot is that the Nixon administration came up with compromise legislation that allowed oil companies to make 10 percent of the “wellhead” price of the oil.
If this rule is still in effect (and there is lots of evindence that it is), that means that they make about $5 per barrel if oil costs $50 a barrel, and about $10 per barrel if oil costs $100 a barrel.
Where is the incentive to lower the cost per barrel? That’s right! There is none. In fact, the incentive is to pay as much for the oil as possible. The more we pay for oil, the more money the oil companies make. That is the reason there has been precious little development of oil reserves in the intervening years.
The year I was born, the US was an oil EXPORTING nation. Now it is hard to believe that was ever the case.
I also remember when the Alaska pipeline was being pushed. It was supposed to be such a great thing that it would solve all our oil needs for the future! At least that is the way it was sold to us. Apparently, more supply tends to create waste and more demand. Alternative energy sources and conservation seem to be the best options, but the oil companies will fight that.
Chris
#15 – With regard to the Alaska pipeline, virtually all of that oil goes to Japan: It was eaten up by the rise of Japan in the late 70’s and 80’s, it didn’t go to waste.
Looks like they were smart enough to find a stable, consistent supply of oil. Can’t we do the same?
>>you want oil prices to come down
I don’t want oil prices to come down. I want to see $15.00/gallon gas. I want the SUV morons to pay until they bleed out of their bungholes.
yea mustard your a real genius because $15.00 gallon gas will only hurt those evil anti environmental non liberal suv owners wont it , it wont hurt our infrastructure or our transportation of goods like food and products or your electricity will it
dumbass liberal tree huggers will be the end of the modern world
um, since when is the oil supply in the hands of ‘capitalists’?
OPEC is not a collection of private industries, you know – it is a cartel of governments who control a huge chunk of the oil supply. there is also the small matter of the socialized oil companies of Mexico and Venezuela.
this ain’t capitalism, folks.
fact of the matter is that pumping more oil will not drive the price down, since the law of price being dictated by supply and demand simply does not apply to a market dictated by international cartels and government firms.
rather, it will just mean more $135/barrel oil. not worth despoiling the publicly-owned wilderness just to make more money for the big oil companies that are already making incredible profits.
I am sorry, but I think this is all for the good.
I originally proposed (and still do) the Gov should double the cost of consumer gas with 1/2 being tax ($1 back with gas was $1) then dedicate that money for energy research.
Areas of Research:
Fuzion power
Building codes
Building materials
Building and subsidizing Mass Transit
Battery
Room temp Super Conductors
Do you think we could have been closer if not energy independent by now.
Sure it sucks in the short run. But now, the average Joe Six pack can actually understand energy efficiencies are not so un-American after all.
All I can find are blog type entries but is there “authority” for what a “free market” means?
I take it that cartels-their formation, longevity, and death are all part of the “free market.”
A market that does not allow cartels or monopolies are “regulated markets.”
Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The free market advantages relatively few over the many, and a regulated market favors the many at the expense of criminals.
>>dumbass liberal tree huggers will be the
>>end of the modern world
No, we’ll be the BEGINNING of the modern world. The “civilized world” as we know it is experiencing its death knell.
And fageddabout $15.00/gal gas, let’s have $30.00/gal gas! Maybe that will shock some sense into the right-wing Humper-driving flakes, and we can start putting our money into viable alternative fuels.
Sorry, Dick Cheney. Oh well, no problem. He’ll be dead by the time the fruits of this endeavor ripen, and the only one whose estate will suffer is the lesbo daughter. Dang! I guess she got what was coming to her.
For those who don’t think Jimmy Carter controlled prices, please explain Reagan’s executive order on taking office that eliminated gas lines by eliminating price controls.
#4
All markets work this way. As my economics professor once said, in order to maximize resource usage, each consumer would have the price they are willing to pay stamped on their shirt and each supplier would charge that amount. However, a core component to every market is the disjoint nature of information. Producers do not know exactly how much a consumer is willing to pay (neither does the consumer typically). When producers charge more than the highest price a given number of consumers are willing to pay, they adjust their price downward.
As more fuel efficient vehicles are developed and as consumers switch into those vehicles, demand for oil will begin to drop. When that happens, the oil companies will lower prices to make it more attractive. There is nothing sinister here nor manipulative.
#9
Carter instituted price controls. That is dictating prices.
# 23 MikeN why are you so ignorant of history or facts?
The Nixon administration had set fossil fuel cost control in 1971 and used them in an effort to rein in inflation and dampen consumer prices during the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo.
Carter started decontrol in April of 1979, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. Full decontrol was to be achieved by the beginning of October 1981. Decontrol would proceed regardless of Reagan.
So # 23 MikeN what is your dumb-ass point again?
As long as alternate fuels power vehicles real people want, like SUV’s and trucks and are not limited to pieces of fucking shit turd little go-kart crap cars for commies, then everything is good.
The debate is always wrong. Bring on alternate fuels, just don’t shrink the vehicles. Oh yeah, BUILD MORE ROADS AND ENCOURAGE URBAN SPRAWL GODDAMMIT!
The Amish aren’t crying about oil. They use authentic horsepower, not all this artificial mechanical crap that ALL WASTES ENERGY.
The only choice most Americans have is to drive to work or to the store. It doesn’t matter how much the price of oil or gas prices rise people still have to go to work or to the store. High prices are not going to change anyones habits. High prices are not going to bring alternate energy to cars and trucks. If it was cost effective to make electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell cars, then we would be using them right now.
How high do you think oil can go?
How much would you pay for gas if you could even find some?
$10.00 a gal? $30.00 a gal? $50.00 a gal?
wow! It’s going to get really really interesting!!!
>>If it was cost effective to make electric
>>cars or hydrogen fuel cell cars, then we
>>would be using them right now.
Might not have been cost-effective with $1.43 gas (like when Dumbya assumed his throne), but $10.00 gas? I bet it becomes cost-effective real fast.
This will be the only good thing Dumbya has done for America since he flew potted plants around Dixie during the Viet Nam war.
18-you really must be as moronic as you sound here (and that’s quite a statement).
Nobody is advocating you not be able to buy what you want, or trying to say you can’t buy a ridiculous resource-hogging vehicle like your oversized SUV (which is your pathetic attempt to make up for certain ‘shortcomings’ elsewhere I am sure).
What we do advocate is that morons like you who choose to make the choice of a 8mpg vehicle continue to pay for your stupidity. We won’t sit by and allow our natural lands be tapped for oil just so you can continue to fill up your resource hog for $1 a gallon.
You’ve made your bed, lie in it.
Oh, by the way, how many times are you going to use ‘tree hugger’ and ‘liberal’ today? Was that Billo’s advice on faux news, and, like a good brainless sheep that you are, you’ve followed through?
Moron.