Oil Rises to Record for 6th Day; Demand Keeps Growing, IEA Says

[seemslikeadream]

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to a record for a sixth day, reaching $54.45 a barrel in New York, after the International Energy Agency said demand this year is rising faster than expected, increasing concern about U.S. supplies.

``Strong demand through the end of the year will tighten supplies and capacity further,'' said Jason Kenney, an analyst at ING Financial Markets in Edinburgh. ``A terror outrage that takes out supply from the market could send prices bursting through $60 and beyond.'' They are up more than $10 a barrel in the past month.

World oil use will jump by 2.71 million barrels a day to 82.4 million barrels a day this year, the IEA said in a monthly report, up 190,000 barrels a day from what it predicted last month. The Agency cut its forecast for 2005 demand growth because oil prices, up 66 percent this year, will restrain the economy.

Crude oil for November delivery was at $54.04 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:37 p.m. in London, up 0.8 percent today and 26 percent since Hurricane Ivan forced Gulf of Mexico producers to cut output. Storm damage has reduced U.S. pumping in the region by at least a quarter for a month and imports have slowed.

November Brent crude climbed to a record $51.50 a barrel and was up 34 cents at $51 a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange, capping a 69 percent gain this year.
more
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=abePn2NNI3jQ&refer=news_index


Oil shoots past $54

By TERRY WEBER
Globe and Mail Update

Oil prices shot past $54 (U.S.) a barrel Tuesday to touch another record high after the International Energy Agency said world demand is climbing faster than expected and warned the impact is now showing on the global economy.

In New York, light, sweet crude futures rose 45 cents to $54.09. In overnight activity, crude prices went as high as $54.45, the highest level in the 21 years that futures contracts have been traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

U.S. oil prices have risen more than 60 per cent since the start of the year. Tuesday marked the fifth session in a row in which crude prices have set a record.

Supply concerns in Nigeria and the lingering impact of recent hurricane activity on production levels in the Gulf of Mexico were key for traders. About 17 million barrels of production have been lost in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Ivan moved through the region last month
more
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041012.woil1012/BNStory/Business/

[moondust]

1. Bush is impotent.

He promised in 2000 that he would use his clout in the ME to keep oil prices down. Somebody probably believed him.

[JPace]

2. I think there are powerful oil producers out there

that do not want furious george to be elected
again.

[Viking12]

3. A related article

The two hundred and ninety million people who live in the United States make up just five per cent of the world’s population, but they consume a quarter of the world’s oil supply. For much of the twentieth century, the United States was the world’s largest oil producer, and its profligacy wasn’t a pressing problem. Today, however, we are only the third-largest producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. In terms of proven reserves—oil deposits that are known to exist and are believed to be accessible at reasonable cost—we have slipped to tenth place in the international rankings, as reservoirs in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma have started to dry up.

-snip-

By invading Iraq, the Bush Administration has unwittingly helped to create what its National Energy Policy was designed to avoid: rising oil prices that threaten to derail the economic recovery. When the price of fuel goes up, it acts like a tax on the economy, reducing consumers’ purchasing power and raising firms’ costs. After the oil-price shocks of both 1973 and 1979, the economy went into a recession. So far this year, the economy has continued to grow, but the rate of expansion has fallen, a development that Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has largely blamed on rising oil prices.

-snip-

“I think we are pretty much at the end of the line,” Jeffrey Sachs, the director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who also serves as a special adviser to Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, told me. “Saudi Arabia is pretty rapidly destabilizing. Iraq I don’t think we are ever going to get under control this way. And our relationship with Iran is poor and deteriorating. The idea that we are going to be the dominant military power of the Persian Gulf is an extremely unrealistic way to manage our affairs. I don’t have an automatic solution. I just think that this one—where we keep building up the military commitment because it keeps failing—is a loser.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?041011fa_fact#top

[jmcgowanjm]

6. The NYer is on top of alot of news lately. Thanx Viking12

but Hydrogen is an energy carrier.
And in addition to being 6%, consuming 25%, we
also borrow 75% to use oil.

"The two candidates, with due respect, are lying to the people, or they don’t know what they are talking about.”-

The War for the US Standard of Living is just beginning.

[cliss]

12. Thanks for the info, Vik.

And of course, my favorite writer here at the DU: SLAD. This report confirms what I have believed all along: it's time to start conserving and sell the Hummer (or the SUV) because we have no other choice.

The Demand line passed the supply line on the chart a long time ago.

*PS: If I'm not mistaken, I think we comprise an even smaller amount than 5% of the world's population (more shameful). I think we're 3.8%. Yes?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Time to nationalize petroleum.

If we have to pay these prices, it's the only way to do it and keep our economy humming.

[jmcgowanjm]

7. Hey, that's what Saddam was doing!

Prague, 1 November 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Iraq is going ahead
with its plans to stop using the U.S. dollar in its oil business
in spite of warnings the move makes no financial sense.

Baghdad this week insisted on and received UN approval to
sell oil through the oil-for-food program for euros only after
6 November. Iraq had threatened to suspend all oil
exports -- about 5 percent of the world's total -- if the body
turned down the request.

http://www.rferl.org/features/2000/11/01112000160846.asp

[Fovea]

10. RIGHT ON!!!!

I have been saying this for 5 years now.
We need to nationalize oil and use the revenues
to break the vroom vroom paradigm.

[htuttle]

11. If oil is important enough to send our children to die for it...

...Then it's important enough to nationalize.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. What a great slogan!

What are the chances of getting key jobbed if I put it on my car as a bumper sticker?

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Here's a part solution:

How about solar-recyclable batteries?

[Radius]

8. Enron...

This is pure speculation and greed. There is no shortage or shift in output to warrant this kind of price move.

They are speculating on events that have not occurred.

Considering #2 heating oil and used peanut oil...Taxes be damned. Diesel 2.05 vs 1.35.

Increase in diesel will translate to higher cost of goods as truck transportation costs are increasing.

[Robert Oak]

13. This reeks, reminds me of electrical price gouging in CA - EOM

[aneerkoinos]

15. Get a clue

Here's one: this is Peak Sweet Light Crude, the global peak in the extraction of the good stuff has been already passed. There's still surpluss capacity in the sour, high sulphur stuff, but the existing refineries have no capacity to handle it.

This the end of cheap oil. This is the end of economic growth.

[SpiralHawk]

9. Thanks a pantload, Meester ChimPEE

I hold you to be the ultimately responsible person, and BushCo as also responsible. I lay this at your steenkin feet. Own it and then do the right thing: resign.

[aneerkoinos]

16. Why blame one man

for the bad choises you have been as a nation since the 70's - at least - blame one man for the fact that oil is finite resource?

It's this kind of groupthinking you represent - mo' cheap gas! - that has been making it impossible to elect people serious about saving America from oil addiction and the unavoidable extremely painfull withdrawal symptoms. The addiction has got so bad that the forced withdrawal is likely to kill the patient, who's gone mad.