We are very lucky to have our corporate offices located on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay, however sometimes we have to pay for
that beauty as we are at the mercy of the elements. This weekend starting on Sunday night, we started paying the price as the elements hit us full force. When we woke up in the morning, we found that our offices along with over 37,000 other homes and offices were without power.
Now you may be wondering how could it be that you are reading this post if our we house our server farm far away in Virginia in a very secure site. Our servers are right alongside those of Google and Yahoo and our site's uptime is 99.9%. The fact is, we never have to worry about power at our server facilities as they have generators the size of buses to run the whole facility including our servers. power is out? The good news is that
With crude oil prices hitting record highs, I think you'll find this short 90 second video very informative. We have enjoyed a great deal of success trading crude oil using our Trade Triangle Technology.
Enjoy, we will have a more in-depth posting hopefully later today.
All the best,
Co-founder of MarketClub.com
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Paul is most likely correct on the new refinery and exploration issues. However, one of the few bright ideas to come out of the Bush Administration is to site refineries on Federal land at closed military bases. No siting issues there. The problem: do refiners really want to pay the $2billion or so that it costs to build one. While they had a great year last year this screwed up market killed gasoline margins by bidding crude up so high in relation to gasoline. Why would you want to spend the money to build a refinery if you were subject to that? One of the many negative consequences of speculative commodity investing.
On the exploration side, eventually we will have to hit the areas that have been closed. Alternatives will come along, but in the meantime we will have to exploit all the areas that are available to us. Given the choice between $4/gallon gas and drilling something tells me the electorate will give up on their environmentalism this time around.
As for Bush begging the Saudi's for more oil - who knows? He's not too bright. He's also the same guy who criticized Clinton for doing the same thing - though at least he had the sense to send his Energy Secretary Bill Richardson rather than to demean the Presidency. Bush apparently doesn't care much about the appearance of the President of the United States groveling before Saudi Royalty. I do - and I think it is pathetic.
OPEC has been right all along. There is no need for more crude - there is plenty of supply out there. It is simply the movement of funds into commodities because of the weak dollar, poor equity markets, or whatever has become a "fundemental". Personally I don't think an institution, investment bank, hedge fund, et al ought to be in the position of setting the price of a commodity. It should be the buyers and sellers - for energy the producers and refiners. But the market is what it is and until the specs have somewhere else to go I suspect we're stuck. When they do find another place to rotate money into wait for the big sucking sound as money flows out of commodities.
A lot of comment that oil "is done". Let's hope.
I hope I am wrong as I hate to continue to pay $4 a Gal. for fuel, but new refineries will not be built in the US due to the "not in my back yard" feelings and the "tree-huggers" will not allow us to drill.
Bush is after the Saudi's to increase production and if they have a huge inventory why is he doing this? My portfolio is weighted toward the deep water drillers and oil in general, long-term oil and energy in general is going up.
I agree with ken, but I think you would get a dramatic price drop if all of a sudden we here in the US would announce that we are going to drill here.
Ther is plenty right here but it seems other countries know that we won't touch it. And also if we said we are building new refineries to make up the capacity problem on that end. I believe it would break the market and the price would become real again just on an announcement that we are definitly going to do it.
I disagree with the above. OPEC does not need to produce any more crude oil. There are simply no buyers. Witness the fact that Iran has 28 million barrels stored offshore in tankers and probably more on land - they can't sell it! No one wants it! Talk to any U.S. refiner and they will tell you producers are breaking down the doors to sell them crude. Sorry, but the hype of tight supply is just that - hype.
The price run up in food, energy, and other commodities has been due to a rush to dollar denominated assets classes - specifically commodities. $20 billion to $250 billion under investment in a few short years - any wonder why prices are up. When the dollar strengthens and equaties make a comeback, commodities will be yesterday's news and so will the hype about Chinese demand, et al. Should investment money flow, rather than supply and demand fundementals determined from physical buyers and sellers be the determiner of price? A burning question and one on the minds of Congress as we speak in this election year. Look for "intervention" be it good or bad. Perhaps too much of a good thing this time for the investment class.
In my opinion oil will continue to rise and unless the government is successful with the Saudi's to dramatically increase production or we do something about demand in this country, neither of which I believe will happen we could see at $175 per barrel by this time next year.
As you are well-aware China, India, and other countries have increased demand and they have the money to pay for it. The U.S. needs to get off of the oil bandwagon and start really looking at alternative fuels. It is simply the law of supply and demand, limited supply and increasing demand. $175 a barrel may not even be the high, remember oil at $17 a barrel not that long ago.