Oil hits fresh high of US$117 a barrel

[muppet]

Oil hits fresh high of US$112 a barrel
New 8:45AM Thursday April 10, 2008

The oil price jumped to a fresh record high of US$112 a barrel overnight on a drop in US inventories and signs of strong demand from China and India.

Opec is now expected to have annual revenues of US$1 trillion because of the increase, which is almost the same as the losses predicted by the IMF from the global credit crunch.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/...ectid=10503197

[Commercial Dan]

Rapid and potential hyper-inflation is on its way, gold/silver are going to go through the roof in the next 2-3 years due to a flight to safety.

[67910241]

ok Dan I think most of us get it

Rapid and potential hyper-inflation is on its way, gold/silver are going to go through the roof in the next 2-3 years due to a flight to safety.

you're very bullish on gold and silver. What do you think will be happening with the oil prices during the same period, and how would you justify your predicitions there?

[Commercial Dan]

Have no idea, my conern is severe inflation which I must admit I did not see coming a few months ago. We seem to be at the beginning of it now!

[67910241]

ok I have a theory

Have no idea, my conern is severe inflation which I must admit I did not see coming a few months ago. We seem to be at the beginning of it now!

very much a gut feeling, nothing more. If America does drag the major Asian economies down, the global consumption will go down too, and so will the oil price. Possibly even in increasingly worthless US $s. But if they fail and China India and (to a lesser extent) Europe and Russia keep their heads above the water, the consumption will keep increasing, and so will the oil prices.

The peak oil is already here, it's just a matter of how quickly the substitutes will be phased in. Personally, I have no doubt the world's not headed for a zero oil catastrophe, but the transition will be a much more expensive period than the one that preceeded it. So, a "worldwide inflation" or "global fiat currency value loss" will come about.

[muppet]

Peak oil here? Nah mate.

Huge amount of oil in the Great South Basin, BUT not economic to get it out......yet

[Tucker]

Did you see on TV the other day questions and the grilling of the shell corporation about the price of fuel. Shell were stumped a couple of times especially when asked why the price of fuel was so high when last year they cleared 40 billion profit.

[67910241]

Any proven data on how huge Muppet?

Peak oil here? Nah mate.

Huge amount of oil in the Great South Basin, BUT not economic to get it out......yet

Do you have any links there. All the ones I could find (up to mid-2007) were rather underwhelming.

I'm also pretty sure there may be plenty in other Solar systems but the transport costs would be totally unjustified.

The Peak Oil theory includes a major consideration on how expensive it's to extract and ship it. Those reserves that would become economical at today's $400/brl don't really count much.

The Peak Oil should really be called "peak cheap oil" as there are many alternatives. Obviously the CTL may become profitable far sooner than any 4 mile deep sub-Antarctic deposits. Straight out of Wikipedia on coal:

"Coal liquefaction is one of the backstop technologies that could potentially limit escalation of oil prices and mitigate the effects of transportation energy shortage that some authors have suggested could occur under peak oil. This is contingent on liquefaction production capacity becoming large enough to satiate the very large and growing demand for petroleum. Estimates of the cost of producing liquid fuels from coal suggest that domestic U.S. production of fuel from coal becomes cost-competitive with oil priced at around 35 USD per barrel,[11] (break-even cost). This price, while above historical averages, is well below current oil prices. This makes coal a viable financial alternative to oil for the time being, although current production is small.[12]
Among commercially mature technologies, advantage for indirect coal liquefaction over direct coal liquefaction are reported by Williams and Larson (2003). Estimates are reported for sites in China where break-even cost for coal liquefaction may be in the range between 25 to 35 USD/barrel of oil.[citation needed]'
Intensive research and project developments have been implemented from 2001. The World CTL Award is granted to personalities having brought eminent contribution to the understanding and development of Coal liquefaction. The 2008 presentation ceremony will take place at the World CTL 2008 Conference (3 & 4 April, 200."

[Julian]

How many gallons/litres to the barrel? It seems to me the trick would be to get cars to run on barrel oil - saves converting it to petrol. Parallel importing would mean fuel oil at close to the US dollar price. We could buy our oil from that parallel importing shop up in Queen St. Does the price include the barrel?
Julian

[muppet]

1 barrel of oil = 42gals.

And what is in it? see.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/wh...arrel_oil.html

[CJ]

Did you see on TV the other day questions and the grilling of the shell corporation about the price of fuel. Shell were stumped a couple of times especially when asked why the price of fuel was so high when last year they cleared 40 billion profit.

They sell at the market price. If they have a cheap source, that is their benefit.

I read somewhere that the it costs the Saudis less than $1 per barrel. If people are willing to pay more than $100 for that same barrel, why not?

[Tucker]

$1 cool.

Shells argument wasn't "people are willing to pay that much" it was "fuel is at that price because that's what it costs us" they were then asked why the big profit and they turned around and said "because we are a big company we need a big profit like that".

[67910241]

from an oil sheikh's point of view

They sell at the market price. If they have a cheap source, that is their benefit.

I read somewhere that the it costs the Saudis less than $1 per barrel. If people are willing to pay more than $100 for that same barrel, why not?

it probably does not make much sense to keep his finite oil supply "affordable" and his margins "socially considerate" so that some infidel gas guzzler in the States has one less thing to moan about.

[Jumpin]

1 barrel of oil = 42gals.

True, but to get a barrel of petroleum, you need to burn a second barrel of oil to crack and distil it.

[67910241]

if that's true Jumping

True, but to get a barrel of petroleum, you need to burn a second barrel of oil to crack and distil it.

does it mean that enforcing diesel as a new standard would (more or less) half the oil consumption of the current worldwide petrol fleet?