Energy News

Hurricane Gustav Can Destroy ALL Gulf Oil Rigs!

August 30, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Hurricane Gustav looks to be an epic storm. It will swell in size as it slowly drifts northwards over the 'sweet spot' which is nearly dead-center in the huge Gulf of Mexico bathtub. Two years has passed with no major hurricanes here so there is lots and lots of inert, warm water to stir up. A category 5 hurricane can easily destroy much of the US offshore oil drilling facilities. Also, England is seeing energy prices shoot upwards as the North Sea energy depletes much, much faster than estimated. And China is busy buying up the oil fields of Iraq. We get the wrong end of THIS stick, don't we? We may see oil rationing? A possibility this winter.

Map of oil rigs via Rig Zone Magazine

Note the density of rigs. Since the price of oil has shot through the roof this last 5 years thanks to the US oil wars, there are many, many more active rigs this year compared to say, 2005. A hurricane is like a huge egg beater set on high speed. As the water is churned from the atmosphere all the way down to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, this creates many waves of huge size. Below is an artful attempt at making a faux oil rig out of a Jägermeister liquor glass with a wineglass stem. The salsa cap represents the platform itself, the stem is the connection to the bottom of the gulf where the oil is pumped and the champagne cork is the upper stories of these rigs where the workers live, etc.

Maybe I should cut back in my drinking. Heh.

Hurricanes are huge, violent intensities that reach from the upper atmosphere, even to the lower stratosphere all the way to the bottom of the ocean. If we were fishes, we would 'see' these mega-storms as if they were tornadoes. Fishes flee these storms because they are quite violent. The connection of the platforms to the ocean bed is fairly secure in normal seas. Storms that are below a category 3 are easily shrugged off. But once the storms hit the fast forward button, when winds roar to over 170 mph or even 200 mph, the hurricane becomes one great big tornado that can literally pick up a great portion of the ocean itself and fling it forwards. When this hits anything in its path, that thing is destroyed.

Water is very heavy. Anyone who doubts this simply can pick up a large bucket of water and carry it. A bucket of water, when dumped suddenly, can erode the ground to a visible degree. When a hundred square miles of agitated ocean water is spun upwards at the center of the hurricane, this can bring down nearly anything in its path.

Fixed Platforms

These platforms are built on concrete and/or steel legs anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting a deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for very long term use (for instance the Hibernia platform). Various types of structure are used, steel jacket, concrete caisson, floating steel and even floating concrete. Steel jackets are vertical sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. Concrete caisson structures, pioneered by the Condeep concept, often have in-built oil storage in tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability, allowing them to be built close to shore (Norwegian fjords and Scottish firths are popular because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where they are sunk to the seabed. Fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in water depths up to about 1,700 feet (520 m).

Compliant Towers

These platforms consist of narrow, flexible towers and a piled foundation supporting a conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Compliant towers are designed to sustain significant lateral deflections and forces, and are typically used in water depths ranging from 1,500 and 3,000 feet (450 and 900 m).

Semi-submersible Platform

These platforms have legs of sufficient buoyancy to cause the structure to float, but of weight sufficient to keep the structure upright. Semi-submersible rigs can be moved from place to place; can be ballasted up or down by altering the amount of flooding in buoyancy tanks; they are generally anchored by with chain, wire rope and/or polyester rope during drilling operations, though they can also be kept in place by the use of dynamic positioning. Semi-submersibles can be used in water depths from 200 to 10,000 feet (60 to 3,050 m).

Jack-up Platforms

Jackups, as the name suggests, are platforms that can be jacked up above the sea using legs which can be lowered like jacks. These platforms are typically used in water depths up to 400 feet (120 m), although some designs can go to 550 feet (170 m) depth. They are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying the legs to the ocean bottom using a rack and pinion gear system on each leg.

Drillships

A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most often used for exploratory drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water but can also be used for scientific drilling. Early versions were built on a modified tanker hull, but purpose-built designs are used today. Most drillships are outfitted with a dynamic positioning system to maintain position over the well. They can drill in water depths up to 12,000 feet (3,660 m).

The last batch of bad hurricanes made a total mess of the previous rigs in the Gulf. Katrina was a very big storm but this one could surpass Katrina in size, heft, dynamism and other bad features. Fortunately for everyone, it will be less than a quarter moon when the hurricane makes landfall so we won't have the moon's gravitational pull making things even worse. It looks pretty certain that all the oil rigs of every type will be shut down as much as possible.

When Katrina, Rita and then Wilma all wrecked havoc last time in 2005, the government lied about all this. They really did pretend that nothing was really amiss. This time around, there is so much worry and fear about oil prices and availability, all eyes will be on these precious rigs. The G7 nations were working very hard at trying to up the value of the dollar and bring down world oil prices this summer. And prices fell as speculators were forced to use much higher margins. Oil has settled down between $110-125 a barrel. Last year, exactly a year ago, I wrote about how it could double in price when it was 'only' $65 a barrel. Well, just like in 2005, we will see a big spike in prices by October.

Right now, everyone is pretty much holding their breaths. Hurricanes are notorious for shifting gears. We saw the wanderings of the last hurricane that wandered in and out of Florida for nearly a week. Fay was very fey. It wandered off across the Southwest, flooding everything in sight. This one, though, is making a beeline across the Gulf. And anyone who thinks oil will keep falling as the US and Europe simultaneously twist Putin's nose, screaming about how we don't need his oil or gas....while Mother Nature smashes a big portion of the US oil markets...incredible.

And very stupid. The G7 think, just because they are all wizards who can wave magic wands and make paper money have value, they control world energy markets. They do not. In 2005, everyone babied the US and gave us lots of oil after the hurricanes. This year, there is little mood to feed the voracious energy appetites of the US public. Certainly, China is too busy rebuilding after the earthquakes to give us much and after our epic howl-a-thonic histrionic hysteria during the Olympics, the Chinese purse may stay shut. And Russia will laugh at us. Europe and Japan can't feed our desires for oil. Only OPEC and Russia can do this.

Oh, and Canada. O, Canada! Give us your oil or else?

Evacuations & Shut-Ins Well Underway With 30% Platforms Evacuated

Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico are evacuating platforms and rigs in the path of Hurricane Gustav. The Minerals Management Service has activated its Continuity of Operations Plan team to monitor the operators’ activities. This team will be activated until operations return to normal and the storm is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities.

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CST today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 223 production platforms, equivalent to 31.1 % of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and natural gas are produced. These structures remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration unlike drilling rigs which typically move from location to location.

Personnel from 45 rigs have also been evacuated; this is equivalent to 37.2 % of the 121 rigs currently operating in the Gulf. Rigs can include several types of self-contained offshore drilling facilities including jackups, submersibles and semisubmersibles.

From the operators’ reports, it is estimated that approximately 76.77 % of the oil production in the Gulf has been shut-in. Estimated current oil production from the Gulf of Mexico is 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. It is also estimated that approximately 37.16 % of the natural gas production in the Gulf has been shut-in. As of June 2008, estimated current natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico was 7.0 billion cubic feet of gas per day. Since that time, gas production from the Independence Hub facility has increased and current gas production from the Gulf is estimated at 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Three quarters of the oil is no longer being pumped. This is a HUGE reduction. The uncertainty of the path of the hurricane is forcing this and if it is a massive category 5+ then ALL the rigs may be in grave danger of destruction, even total annihilation. Anchors will be dragged about and these will snag pipelines lying on the sea floor.

Rigs will be ripped out of their footings or torn from their anchors and crash into others. In Katrina, one rig was jammed under a highway bridge. There are several forces of nature we can't tame, control or sometimes even endure: meteorite or comet strikes, mega-storms, volcanic eruptions or 9+ earthquakes and attending tsunamis. Oh, and the sun blowing up, of course. Don't want to forget that. My grandfather who was an astronomer, loved to remind me of this possibility. It is a wonder I survived my childhood intact.

From NOAA:

This is an amazing storm any way we look at it. The eye, even as it crashes into Cuba, is very well defined. The skirts of the storm's heaviest rain is deep and wide. And it has been grinding along the chain of Caribbean islands that inhibit total hurricane growth. If it is a category 4 in this circumstance and since all hurricanes, once they enter the center of the bathtub, grow worse, this one will be worse than worse. Wilma, for example, was a category 2 when she dipped her little toe in the tub. In less than 90 minutes, she shot upwards to a category 5. There is an upper limit to hurricane strength. But this is at a level that is so destructive, it really doesn't matter if the winds are 240 or 270 miles per hour, for example. Hurricane Andrew hit shore in Florida as a long series of tornadoes, for example. These were a lot faster than 200 mph, each.

Tropical Storm Gustav will have more and bigger offshore energy targets to hit than the 2005 hurricanes did, should the storm stick to its projected path through the central Gulf of Mexico.

In 2005, only two platforms produced more than 100,000 barrels a day; this summer, six are producing at that level or are preparing to do so. Since 2005, oil and gas production has increasingly shifted to deeper water off the coast of Louisiana, with a handful of giant platforms generating volumes once produced by dozens of small, shallow-water facilities.

The industry has had two relatively quiet hurricane seasons since the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The two hurricanes damaged 75% of offshore platforms and resulted in the shutting in of 103 million barrels of oil and 610 billion cubic feet of gas production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Drillers and producers have attempted to shore up their infrastructure to prevent similarly widespread damage from the next major hurricane to sweep through the Gulf of Mexico. But with Gustav projected to pass directly through the Gulf's main production zone early next week, potentially as a Category 4 hurricane, there are no guarantees. While the Gulf is layered with thousands of platforms and miles of pipeline, a handful are responsible for the bulk of production, and will be most closely watched in a storm.

"There are a lot of things in the industry that have improved since the '04 and '05 seasons, but at the end of the day, it's going to be a question of how destructive storms are and how powerful they are when they go through the Gulf," said David Dismukes, associate executive director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University.

The oil riggers lead very dangerous lives, providing us with the fuel to tool around in cool cars. And the rigs offshore are far, far more expensive to build, run and manage than landward systems. So the oil companies do work hard to secure and protect these investments. But again: Mother Nature doesn't give a fig about this. She created this oil by being extremely nasty periodically and killing, crushing and then burying billions of tons of living things so we can tap them later and use them as fuel. If Mother Nature was a pleasant dame, we would have a lot less oil.

The global gold rush for more oil has been in the areas most vulnerable to weather depredations. This is a feature of the Hubbert Oil Peak. All the easy oil has been found. We now have to go to more and more challenging places to find less and less oil.

Mandatory evacuations begin as Gustav draws near

(CNN) -- Authorities began ordering mandatory evacuations along Louisiana and Mississippi's Gulf Coast on Saturday as Hurricane Gustav roared past Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. "They made it very clear that this storm could be as bad as it gets," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday afternoon of the Category 4 storm, with sustained winds that reached 150 mph. "We could see flooding even worse than we saw in Hurricane Katrina."

Thousands of people had begun fleeing the coast by the time a hurricane watch was issued Saturday afternoon for southeastern Texas to the Alabama-Florida border as Gustav pursued a projected path toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The watch, which means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours, was announced the day after many in the region marked the third anniversary of Katrina's landfall.

At 5 p.m. ET, the eye of Gustav was about 130 miles (210 km) east-northeast of Cuba's western tip and moving northwest about 15 mph.

I remember the Fall of 2005. The government thought Mother Nature was a great form of urban renewal. Killing, scattering or destroying the homes of the poor would fix New Orleans for the better. Then, they announced they wanted $250 billion to rebuild the joint. The Chinese said no so it wasn't rebuilt as fancy as the developers wanted. Now, we may see even more destruction. Certain cities in the past have been doomed by such forces. They can be rebuilt like in Indonesia. I wouldn't want to live where tsunamis can wipe everyone out with virtually no warning. But then, the biggest populations on earth are in these sorts of places like Bangladesh, for example.

Just like in California, building houses that can survive the fires and earthquakes there, the hurricane alley cities should have more research into how to build hurricane-proof homes and then enforce the codes that force people to build within this system. After all, if a roof is ripped off or a building torn from its foundations, it becomes a wrecking ball and destroys neighbor's homes. Rational building is an art we seem unable to want or practice.

Iraq signs $3 billion oil deal with China

CNN) -- Iraq has signed its first major oil deal with a foreign company since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, a spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry said Saturday. It was the first time in more than 35 years that Iraq has allowed foreign oil companies to do business inside its borders.

The contract with the China National Petroleum Corporation could be worth up to $3 billion. It would allow the CNPC to develop an oil field in southern Iraq's Wasit province for about 20 years, Oil Ministry spokesman Assim Jihad said.

Iraq's Cabinet must still approve the contract, but Jihad said that would happen soon and work could start within a few months.

The Chinese company will provide technical advisers, oil workers and equipment to develop al-Ahdab oil field, providing fuel for al-Zubaidiya power plant in Wasit, southeast of Baghdad, bordering Iran, Jihad said.

China is buying oil systems and fields. The US can go begging to Iraq for oil to replace the lost Gulf of Mexico oil. But then, the US has the national reserves. I am betting this will be used. But if there is no rationing, it will all be a waste of time. If it means higher and higher profits for the oil companies, it will simply drain the economy further. Pumping it out to sell it to US consumers, if they are not serious about controlling our manic use of oil, it will be a waste.

The Chinese are rapidly bidding higher and higher and locking us out of more and more oil opportunities.

China's lead in race for new nuclear plants could create UK skills famine

Britain's plans for a new generation of nuclear power stations will face a fierce challenge for skills and resources from countries keen to build their own, according to research published today.

China has plans for 24 nuclear plants and outline proposals for another 76, according to the Economic Research Council, using figures from the International Energy Agency and the IAEA.

"China's plans indicate its key role in new nuclear build, and the impact of just a small element of its projects being realised would have major implications for new nuclear build capacity — and the many constraints," according to the ERC.

The Chinese are on a roll, aren't they? Maybe if we can start a war with them. Like Europe and the US seem bent, doing this to Russia. Russia and China are forming an oil-power alliance of user and seller which is going about the planet, rapidly building a New Consensus. And this is all about them rationing the oil for dollars business. Namely, dollars decline in value as trade tokens while the power lies in the hands of the developers and political centers where there is enough muscle to ensure contracts. Namely, the nuclear powers of China and Russia, working in tandem.

NEVER did they do this in the past! Since 1955, Russia and China's rulers were at each other's throats. Mao even thought it a neat coup to haul in Nixon and make a deal the Russians hated! Today: Putin and Hu are on the same page, playing the same 'Ride of the Valkyries.' If the consumer nations like the US and most of Europe think they can bully either Russia or China, they are total fools. And these hurricanes will simply aggravate things even more. In favor of Russia and China.

The US basically has no nuclear power program. We barely have any alternative energy programs. We let years slip by while not forcing people to incorporate sane energy/power use systems that would cut down US energy consumption which is a good one third of our trade deficit.

Fears for elderly as ScottishPower raises gas price by 34%

Npower and ScottishPower yesterday became the last of Britain's big six energy suppliers to raise household bills, adding at least £162 a year to millions of customers' heating costs.

This year energy bills have had the biggest annual rise since the energy market was privatised. Npower, the UK's fourth-biggest energy group, is increasing gas prices by 26 per cent and electricity bills by 14 per cent.

From yesterday, the company's 6.6 million customers will pay an average £162 more each year for gas and an extra £60 for electricity. At the same time, ScottishPower has raised its gas bills by 34 per cent, the second largest rise, British Gas having increased its gas prices by 35 per cent last month.

ScottishPower also announced that it had increased its electricity prices by 9 per cent; that will come into effect on Monday. The company's 1.2 million customers will pay £221 more a year on gas and an extra £38 for electricity.

England is well on the downslope of the Hubbert Oil Peak. The North Sea rigs are producing much, much less than expected. They thought the downslope would be gentle. Instead, it is very steep. This shows us that once the summit of oil production in any field is reached, the decline is totally unpredictable. England partied while the oil flowed. Now, the poor people there, deep in debt to the exact same degree and for the identical reasons the US public is deep in debt, now they have to pay through the nose for energy. People will die. The government will be pixilated. 'Hey, we joined the US in invading Iraq for the umpteenth time in the last 100 years and the CHINESE get the oil????' screams the dying Lion to the lounge lizard unicorn.

England still pulls the rags of its imperial ermine robes about its fleabitten shoulders and huffs. After all, they have hitched a one hundred year's ride on the coattails of the American empire. Why shouldn't they just invade Burma, the Middle East, Africa or any nation and just STEAL stuff? Attack China and loot the palaces there. Yes, this is the dark dreams that cause the Brits to flop about at night as they worry about how to pay the heating bills. For alas, Russia and China have nuclear bombs.

Labour 'blocks' Centrica nuclear bid

Centrica is being barred by the government from making a solo bid for British Energy, according to one of the nuclear generator's largest institutional shareholders.

The shareholder, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also questioned why preferred bidder EDF retains the 'irrational total support' of the government.

He said that a merger with Centrica to create a British champion would be better for shareholders because they could get a higher price and retain shares in the combined entity. 'But Centrica is unable to do a deal because the government is discouraging it,' he added.

Centrica plc, trading as British Gas (and as Scottish Gas in Scotland) is market leader in the supply of energy to UK households. In recent years the UK wholesale energy market has become more volatile, leading to increasing energy prices. Consequently the core residential energy business of British Gas has been running at a loss according to results released by parent, Centrica plc.

To help to manage price volatility, Centrica announced a variety of investments in new sources of supply that may help wholesale prices to come down in the future. During 2005, the company estimated that nearly £600 million was spent on new gas, power and renewable energy assets, with a further £400 million committed to help import more gas into the country.[10] Since 40% of electricity is generated by gas-powered stations, this investment was predicted to reduce the cost of electricity. In parallel, British Gas announced in July 2006 that they intend to improve customer service.

By early 2007 market reports suggested that UK wholesale energy prices had stabilised and started to fall. In March 2007 British Gas (and Scottish Gas) implemented the first price reductions in the UK residential energy market for six years, a move followed by other major energy suppliers. [11]. In late April 2007 British Gas again reduced prices, highlighting that some competitors had yet to reduce prices in 2007. Having suffered heavy losses of customers as prices were rising, British Gas claimed that the new environment of falling prices would allow them to grow their customer base. [12].

Meanwhile, the EU is investigating alleged malpractice in the wholesale market for gas and electricity supply across Europe. Allegations include the suggestion that gas supplies to the UK are restricted, contributing to increases in the wholesale price of gas in the UK. The conclusions of a competition inquiry into the EU energy sector were published in December 2006.

The draft conclusions, published in February 2006, confirmed fears by Brussels that former state monopolies in the major European markets (though not in the UK) were keeping a stranglehold on home markets, allowing them to control pricing - against the interests of consumers. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes criticised excessive concentration in what she said reflects the "old market structure of national or regional monopolies".[13]

The EU is flopping about, trying desperately to bring down prices. They have to snag someone besides the very irritable, intelligent and well-connected Putin of Russia. The attempt at scaring him simply made him mad enough to stomp on everyone's toes and threaten to wipe out half of Europe. Ooops. Well, demonizing him may be fun but it won't keep energy prices cheap.

The hedges set up to 'make energy cheaper' are like planting privet hedges to stop a category five hurricane from smashing into your beach cottage. Hedges work only if there is peace and plenty. When things go haywire, there is no protections from Reality. For Reality is Mother Nature and She says, 'I don't care what stupid things people say and do, there are strict limits to oil production. Even thought oil is Death Incarnate, it is limited. Death, on the other hand, it limitless. It is eternal and total.'

The whining from commissioner Neelie Kroes is childish. She sounds like a teenager who thinks mom's purse is a bottomless fund system. She thinks that the 'old market structure' is excessive? HAHAHA. Welcome to reality, ain't she a bitch!

The EU clowns all think that the whole planet will become a confederation whereby everyone joins each other in doing what? Exploiting the Middle East by using the US military that is going bankrupt! And so they scold REAL countries who have REAL power. Snits who stick their noses in the air and grandly announce that mere countries dare not stop the confederation in setting economic rules! HAHAHA. China and Russia will make Europe eat dirt, first. If the Europeans were slightly smarter, they would look in the mirror. 'Oh my god! We started WWI and WWII! Wow! We are BAD GUYS!'

But rulers are as allergic to looking in mental mirrors as vampires.

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Power FOR The People!

August 21, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

I have tried for the last 35 years to convince everyone that we should have solar energy systems on every house and small windmill systems on every roof top. Everyone must produce as much energy as possible, all the time. Then we need more only for extra use or hours when such systems don't work! Instead, America goofed off for 35 years and now is going bankrupt. We can't rewire America if we have no money! Today's news is all one big web here, I hope everyone has the patience to read this whole story here:

Wind power brings prosperity, anger

(AP) -- John Yancey leans against his truck in a field outside his home, his face contorted in anger and pain. "Listen," he says.

The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land.

Yancey knows the towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community

But Yancey hates them.

All energy systems have downsides. I have stood on my distant mountain, disgusted with the thick, ozone-laden air, the further hills totally masked by smog, smog that came half way across the US continent to my rural landscape! This kills my trees, my oxen, my chickens, my son who has asthma. We are given choices!

I am for INDIVIDUAL energy systems! Every house should have solar energy and very small wind mills. Every major building, ditto! No need to carpet the countryside with mega-systems! Are we even barely beginning to do this?

NO!!!! All we need is laws that require all building permits for any new buildings to require this. How simple is it? People wasted huge sums of money on kitchens and bathrooms, front hallways and swimming pools this last building boom and virtually none spent a penny on any home energy generation systems! GOOD GRIEF! What will it take?

A top notch solar system costs $30,000. The average house sold last year at well over $250,000. So it is easy and possible and can happen only if politicians and others pushed for laws that would require this.

Why? PATRIOTISM!!!! We are going bankrupt, importing energy. The man who is whining about windmills here is the victim of concept of doing things big, not small. If we want small, we can get it but ONLY if we ALL do it, collectively! Free choice when the choice is to destroy our nation or our environment, to pollute other people's air, water or sound, hey! We have to COOPERATE to survive. Cooperation is not a difficult concept, after all. It is also called 'Civilization'. We could pretend to be savages but even savages, stone age savages who barely know how to make fire, COOPERATE. Or they die. There is no such thing as the glorious individual. We are a species, a family, a part of Nature and residents on Planet Earth. We have obligations to all others who share this.

A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading

Using swap dealers as middlemen, investment funds have poured into the commodity markets, raising their holdings to $260 billion this year from $13 billion in 2003. During that same period, the price of crude oil rose unabated every year.

CFTC data show that at the end of July, just four swap dealers held one-third of all NYMEX oil contracts that bet prices would increase. Dealers make trades that forecast prices will either rise or fall. Energy analysts say these data are evidence of the concentration of power in the markets.

CFTC leaders have argued that speculators are not influencing commodities' prices. If any new information arises during the agency's examination of swap dealer activity, officials said they would report it to Congress.

"To date, the CFTC has found that supply and demand fundamentals offer the best explanation for the systematic rise in oil prices," CFTC spokesman R. David Gary said, reading a statement that had been crafted by agency officials. "Regardless of their classification . . . the CFTC's market surveillance group scrutinizes daily the positions of all large traders, both commercial and non-commercial, to guard against market manipulation."

Well, DUH!!!! The traders were scared off for a few days. They went dutifully back to placing bets on dollars, yen and euros. And other things...that MADE NO MONEY! So they are all rushing back into the oil markets because EVERYONE needs oil. And the US has absolutely no tariffs or barriers to oil imports so we are going bankrupt, importing oil we cannot COLLECTIVELY afford. Every drop of oil we import, weakens our entire nation. The more we do this, the worse it will be in the end. Importing oil dooms our nation. We can't keep doing this! Everyone rejoiced when the threats of investigation or the jawboning down of commodities dropped oil prices.

But they are rising, fast, again. I said last week, commodity inflation comes in waves. Each one is greater than the one before. If empires insist on creating endless funny money and spending on wars, we get oil inflation. This, in turn, triggers inflation all over the place. To fight this, we must reduce our oil consumption. We are a collective nation, not individuals. Anyone wants to be an individual, he can live on a deserted island in the ocean.

My father was the head of the Alternative Energy Commission under Jimmy Carter. He advised Jimmy to put those solar panels on the White House, by the way. Here is a story about Jimmy Carter's attempt to channel myself and my dad and the rest of my family, concerning the Hubbert Oil Peak and how the US must not fall into the trap of importing most of our oil:

Past and Present: 'Malaise' and the Energy Crisis

By Kevin Mattson
Posted August 13, 2008
The president of the United States was rumored to have disappeared or gone crazy. It was July 5, 1979, and Jimmy Carter had canceled a speech scheduled for national television that evening. During the day, as the press pondered his infirmity, the president was at Camp David, consulting his staff about a broad "crisis of confidence" that his young pollster, Patrick Caddell, had diagnosed.

He spent 10 more days at the Maryland mountain retreat, meeting with not only staff but also political and civic leaders from various walks of life. On July 15, 1979—a Sunday, fit for a national sermon—Carter went in front of television cameras to give the most important speech of his presidency. He spoke in dire terms of the "crisis of confidence." Since then, his words have been remembered as the "malaise" speech, a word never uttered during it but later grafted onto it by the media and Carter's political opponents, Ted Kennedy to the left and Ronald Reagan to the right. "Malaise" stuck.

America was anemic. We wanted more oil. Jimmy wanted us to move away from heavy oil consumption. Instead, we voted in Reagan and since then, the oil barons have ruled America. And our trade deficit has ballooned due to oil and the attempt at getting rid of the cost of oil via suppressing wages by outsourcing and offshoring manufacturing. Today, our nation is on the verge of dying thanks to this. Jimmy Carter also wants to have some justice for Palestine so he is now totally invisible here in the US. Nearly as much as I. Hi, Jimmy! Hope you keep your courage up!

Looking For Energy, Google Goes To Hell

But on Tuesday, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of search giant Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), announced it would try to help spur companies to reach underground to produce clean electricity. It is investing a total of $10 million in a geothermal energy company called AltaRock Energy and a drilling company called Potter Drilling, and it is funding research and mapping efforts and a policy agenda.

It is part of Google.org's effort to help bring about renewable energy that is cheaper than coal by investing in companies, research and policy development. The organization is focusing on three main technologies: solar thermal power, which uses the sun's heat to generate electricity; advanced wind technology; and, now, a way of tapping geothermal energy called enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS.

Ain't going to work. Some places where there are nasty volcanoes and lots and lots of earthquakes are also great places to do this. But I have written about this in the past. Here is one example:

Geology of Mud Volcanoes In Indonesia And Caspian Sea

The mud volcano in Indonesia continues to pour out hot material so the government is seeking to stop it with cement balls which have been used in Azerbaijan. Mud volcanoes are associated with gas and oil fields and tectonic plate movments.

All sorts of hazards like sudden mud volcanoes occur when drilling to set up a geothermal plant. The one in Northern California has continuous small earthquakes. It is dreadfully near interesting geologically unstable messes. Just like the nuclear power plants of Japan. Also, it uses a lot of water and I do mean, a lot. All choices we make involves losses, dangers and difficulties. Certainly, this is up there as 'difficult and dangerous.'

Rooting for a Bill Clinton-Pickens ticket By Paul Begala

Only Reid could bring former President Bill Clinton and right-wing Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens together to find common ground. Clinton spoke first. He arrived Monday, direct from Little Rock, where he'd helped eulogize his friend, Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney. The heartache was still etched in his face, but nothing was going to make him break his commitment to Reid.

With few notes and no prepared speech, the former president outlined a comprehensive strategy to spur economic growth and create millions of new jobs while moving America away from fossil fuels and toward saving the planet.
*snip*
But, like Clinton, he rose to the occasion. He outlined his plan to move trucks and cars to natural gas, while producing 20 percent of our electricity from wind. He was self-deprecating, clear-eyed and disarmingly candid. Through it all, he conveyed one clear message: American dependence on foreign oil must be reduced.

This story just infuriates me! When Clinton was still President, ABC asked me to talk about solar energy in an article called 'Power For the People'. Afterwards, ABC called me and said, 'We will NEVER put you on the air again. No one likes you, Elaine.' Just...WOW. What did I do wrong? I talked about money and solar energy? Huh? Well, where was Clinton?

Fooling around with Monica! What did he do about all this? HAHAHA. Nothing.

Bush actively hates me, my dad and Jimmy Carter. So he killed even the slightest efforts to increase individual ownership of energy systems! And T. Boone Pickens?

GADS!!!! My old enemy! Now he is for wind energy....IN HUGE CLUSTERS just like that poor man in the first story is so bitter about! Sigh. This is a total nightmare, Belaga, not heaven. But then, this wretched money-soaked meeting was in Sin City, Nevada, right next to where the US blew up so many nuclear bombs. A total hell hole.

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Oil Over $142 A Barrel

June 27, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Both gold and oil are shooting up again. I suppose part of this is due to all those IOU 'free money' checks Uncle Sam is rapidly mailing out to US voters. Funny, how this causes inflation. Moscow is delighted with the high energy prices and plans to colonize the US oil industry. Like China is moving into Brazil, Peru and Venezuela's oil industries. Russia is also poised to start taking over Afghanistan, too. As well as other former Soviet satellite nations. The price of uranium is rising faster than gold. And we learn the hazards of drilling for energy deep in the earth.

OPEC has no influence on oil prices, according to Gazprom chief

Russia's biggest energy company has warned that oil prices will end at a 'radically' new level and that OPEC has little influence over the price of crude.

Alexey Miller, chief executive of Gazprom, said that the global economy is facing "a great surge in oil and gas prices" that will "end with prices at a radically new level."

His comments to the Financial Times came as oil surged to a new high of $141.98, leaving prices more than double where they were 12 months ago and casting a shadow over the prospects for the global economy this year and next.

Russia's leaders can hardly contain their glee. Their ability to buy up all systems right out from under Europeans and Americans is rapidly rising. The US can print up endless Funny Money™ which it loans to itself so it can run Iraq and Afghanistan and intimidate and control Pakistan and all the other Stans. But the Russians are far more familiar with the cultures and mindset of the Stans and knows how to throw real money around. Like gold. Gold is a great tool for bribing people since ancient times. Purchasing alliances with gold is very ancient and was used all the way up until the Cold War.

Russia joins the war in Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar

Moscow is staging an extraordinary comeback on the Afghan chessboard after a gap of two decades following the Soviet Union's nine-year adventure that ended in the withdrawal of its last troops from Afghanistan 1989. In a curious reversal of history, this is possible only with the acquiescence of the United States. Moscow is taking advantage of the deterioration of the war in Afghanistan and the implications for regional security could be far-reaching.

A joint statement issued in Moscow over the weekend following the meeting of the United States-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism (CTWG) revealed that the two sides had reached "agreement in principle over the supply of Russian weaponry to the Afghanistan National Army" in its fight against the Taliban insurgency. The 16th session of the CTWG held in Moscow on June 19-20 was co-chaired by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns.

The US wants control of the Stans and other places so we can exploit them for cheap energy. Russia, on the other hand, is on THEIR side of the business! Russia wants a good return on oil, not steal the oil. Russia wants oil to be high in price, not low! So there is a thing we call 'commonality.' They all have similar goals. Including the goal of destroying the US invaders! The Stans don't trust Russia, either. For obvious historical reasons. But they dearly would love to triangulate with Russia and the US. This is when one has maximum power over hostile armed foreign powers.

The Telegraph:

The Russian group is benefiting from high domestic prices he said, but also plans to expand into the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa.

Mr Miller said: "We see North America as a region of our strategic interests", revealing that Gazprom is in the process of "creating a new configuration of gas supplies" to the US and Canada. The group hopes to break into the American market in 2014.

The Russsians are coming! The Russians are coming! This was a popular movie in the early 1960's. Well, all the oil pumping powers are coming here and they are buying us out whenever the Japanese and Chinese aren't buying everything in this international fire sale. 'Buy American! CHEAP!' is our motto. 'Bankruptcy Sales Galore! Place a bid!' Well, we go back to the paradox of who wins wars.

Who won WWII? Japan and Germany! Both can triangulate world powers and the need to strengthen and empower both Germany and Japan led the Great Empires to build both up and to make them one of the top 4 economic powers on earth! So they won. Russia and now the US were and are going bankrupt.

China is taking over Venezuelan oil fields one by one:

As described in this article published by BNAmericas, Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela S.A) and China's state oil company CNPC (China National Petroleum), have entered into a joint venture in which the two government owned oil conglomerates will work together in order to produce 8 new oil rigs by years end in Venezuela.

This adds to the two oil rigs delivered by CNPC in November 2007, and three more to come in 2009, bringing the total number of "made in China" oil rigs operating in Venezuela to 13. This will also allow Venezuela and allow PDVSA, for the first time in the country's history to construct their own oil rigs domestically... without North American or European assistance.

Who won the Cold War? Russia and China! They are getting richer, stronger and more powerful. Both are dominating world trade and making huge inroads in US power as well as taking over US finances and buying up US properties. They won that war after going bankrupt. The US refuses to go bankrupt even though this is the harsh thing one goes through to get over to the other side.

Refiner Insiders Buy Most Stock Since 2000 on Oil Bet

(Bloomberg) -- Refinery executives are buying more of their own stock than at any time since 2000, prompting investors to bet that a retreat in oil will boost profits and reverse the biggest share decline in a decade.

Executives at 10 refining companies snapped up $2 million of their shares last month, twice what they sold, according to data from the Washington Service, which analyzes insider patterns for 500 institutional clients. That helped raise the average level of purchases to the highest in eight years, data from Argus Research Co. compiled by Leuthold Group show. Before March, insiders dumped more shares than they bought every week since 2003.

As the price of oil shoots to $150 a barrel, perhaps the news media can lead a charge and demand the war talk aimed at Iran cease and talk about punishing Libya end. As well as all the other bully-boy American silliness. We have to eventually figure out that global oil inflation is due mostly to US actions. We decided to have cheap gasoline unlike all of the other major oil consuming nations in the West. We decided to buy a huge fleet of many millions of SUVs. We decided to go to war when oil prices were only $28 a barrel. We can't blame the Chinese for any of this. They gradually increased their oil consumption. We radically increased it both for domestic use and for our giant military adventures in the Middle East. Our military eats more oil than any single organization on earth.

Oil minister: Saudi willing to increase crude output

Saudi Arabia — the world's top crude exporter — called the gathering Sunday to send a message that it, too, is concerned by high oil prices inflicting economic pain worldwide.

Instead, the meeting highlighted the sharp disagreement between producers like Saudi Arabia and consuming countries like Britain and the United States over the core factors driving steep price hikes. Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday — almost double the price a year ago.

I include this old news because it shows how infantile we are. Saudi Arabia will endlessly promise more oil and we guzzle it all and they stopped increasing oil some time ago and won't increase it much at all after this. They are triangulating with Russia. And China. Eventually we will have to offer them something substantial like say, the West Bank. Right now, we are too focused on disarming Iran and the despotic kings ruling the Arabs don't want a revolutionary Iran running about, able to defy invaders from say, Iraq. The entire concept of a revolutionary power right next door frightens and irritates them. But they don't want a war because they rightfully fear an uprising at home as well as destruction as Iran turns and attacks them, not the US.

U.S. Economy: Consumer Spending Rose More Than Anticipated

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. consumer spending rose more than forecast in May as tax rebates drove the biggest gain in incomes in almost three years, enabling households to at least temporarily overcome soaring fuel bills.

The 0.8 percent rise in purchases was the biggest since November, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Incomes grew 1.9 percent, the most since September 2005, and measures of inflation were lower than anticipated.

Wow! We goosed our economy and paid for all this expensive oil by putting more debt on the public ledger. If we want, we can run our economy openly this way! Every four months, the US government can mail all of us $600. Then, as the price of oil rushes to $200 a barrel, we just laugh. So what if our debt soars past $10 trillion and we add another trillion a year!

Will this stop inflation or make it worse? Heh. Obviously, the more money we get from the DC criminal class, the more inflation we get! This is not a sane fix. But people don't care. They clutch at this fake money and spread it across the planet. All our trade partners want to see us spend money, too, so they are silent about this scheme to pay for all the oil via fake money. The downside is, Saudi Arabia throws in the towel and refuses to sell us oil for dollars. This can and will happen if we go down this road much further.

Uranium to Fetch $90 as Indian Reactors Drive Demand

(Bloomberg) -- The uranium industry's worst year is about to collide with a nuclear construction program in India and China that rivals the ones undertaken during the oil crisis of the 1970s.

The result is likely to be a 58 percent rebound in uranium to $90 a pound from $57 now, according to Goldman Sachs JBWere Pty and Rio Tinto Group, the third-biggest mining company. Uranium plunged 57 percent in the past year as an earthquake damaged a Japanese nuclear plant that's the world's largest and faults shut down reactors in the U.K. and Germany.

All the speculators reading Bloomberg are in hysteria! Get me uranium! Lucky for us, we produce uranium. Maybe we can make this work out. The US has many wonderful resources. We just don't have endless CHEAP oil anymore. We didn't raise taxes on oil and cut down on gasoline use. So we now have a huge oil trade deficit. Well, this has to be fixed in the end. We must restructure our lives accordingly like everyone else on earth. Then we will be on top of things! We got STUFF here!

Geothermal probe sinks German city

Staufen, in the Black Forest, was proud of its innovative geothermal power plan that was supposed to provide environmentally-friendly heating.

But only two weeks after contractors drilled down 460ft to extract heat from below the earth, large cracks have appeared in buildings as the town centre subsided about a third of an inch (8mm).
*snip*
A similar experiment triggered a series of earthquakes near Basel in Switzerland last year.

I argue all the time with people who imagine we can just suck energy of various sorts out of the earth. The earth is very complex. There are many hidden things below thanks to tectonic plate movements. When we drill very, very deep, all sorts of unexpected things can happen. The Black Forest, for example, sits on top of very complex mountain building from back when Europe was crushed in the middle of Pangea. Now, Africa is shoving Europe hard to the south and there are hidden folds and strange left overs from 200 million years ago a mile down. As we try to solve our energy problems, we must take all this in account. There is no easy way out.

The earth has a lot of deep energy! We see this with massive earthquakes and volcanic events! The volcanos prove that the earth is very, very hot just below the surface and heat is energy. But tapping this must be done with greatest care and fear. It is not an easy answer.

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Oil Up Due To Israel War Games

June 20, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Finally a news service makes an open connection between Israel/US war talk and war games and the price we pay for oil! The NYT, on the other hand, has an editorial demanding we sue OPEC because of high oil prices. Well, prices were low when the US invaded Iraq! Also, thanks to the high cost of oil, new technologies and research takes off and not a minute too soon! We have burned nearly half of all the world's oil. There is still half of it left but this doesn't give us an excuse to burn it all in a few years.

Crude Oil Rises as U.S. Dollar Weakens, Israel Conducts Drill

(Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose as the weaker dollar enhanced the appeal of commodities as a currency hedge and the New York Times reported that Israel held a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on nuclear targets in Iran.

Oil prices have nearly doubled in the past year as investors sought refuge from a declining dollar, which fell again today after traders pared bets the Federal Reserve will raise rates on June 25. Iran, OPEC's second-biggest oil producer, would respond to an Israeli attack with a ``heavy blow,'' a senior cleric said.

The dynamics of the dying dollar and wars in the oil pumping nations is hard for people to understand especially when there is a blizzard of propaganda designed to confuse and confound us all. Inflation in the US takes off when oil is expensive. And oil gets expensive because of wars and boycotts! The years of the boycott of Iraq under Saddam was mitigated very cleverly by the 'oil for food' scam set up by the G7 at the UN. They knew that if they had a true boycott, there would be raging inflation, Iran would become very rich and the US would go bankrupt.

For some horrid reason, our rulers have decided to NOT have oil export markets for Iran. The boycott is serious now and time is running out. There can't be a 15 year boycott like with Iraq. It has to be ending very, very soon or else! The war talk, the boycotts, everything is worsening inflation. At first, I suspect that the banking gnomes wanted all inflation to flow to gold. The reason is simple: nothing is connected with gold. When gold went up and up and up before the war talk got serious, this was OK since it ISOLATED dollars and kept them out of markets such as food and fuel.

Note that food and fuel have risen very rapidly since gold has stagnated in value! Gold bug sites can't understand this. They think the big agents want cheap gold. Why, in heaven's name? Cheap gold doesn't move markets. Once money flows into gold, it ceases to circulate. This is because no one does business in gold. Gold futures don't change anything for consumers. It doesn't make the price of food go up! It doesn't make the price of oil go up! How simple is this?

If I wanted popularity rather than truth telling, I would lie about gold. There are many gold bug sites that cling to a mythology about gold as being 'real money.' I have explained that gold is useful only as a regulator and guardian of banks. When it is held privately, it has less power. If it is needed due to war, a gun or control of armies and militias make much more sense. Then one can steal gold. Which is used to buy arms!

Back to oil: Israel has scared the Iranians into taking hostile actions. This means they will destroy oil facilities in the Gulf. And if the US joins in this criminal escapade then we might get WWIII as the other empires move to prevent the US from taking over OPEC entirely. Europe wants Israel and the US to take over OPEC since they are major OPEC customers. Right now, they need Russian energy and this scares them since Russia is powerful and well armed. The Arabs are not.

High oil prices are a war tax. The US people can't understand this since no one talks about it on TV. Here is the odious NYT editorial demanding we sue OPEC for selling oil to us at a price determined by speculators and war profiteers:

By THOMAS W. EVANS: Sue OPEC

THE president of the United States has the power to attack, and perhaps destroy, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the illegal cartel that has driven the price of oil over $130 per barrel. This can be accomplished without invasion or bombing. No special legislation is needed. The president need simply allow the states to seek relief in the Supreme Court under our antitrust laws.
*snip*
Even an adverse decision in this suit would draw attention to OPEC’s destructive behavior. An informed and aroused public would demand action from whichever branch the court identified as having the authority to act against the cartel. The Supreme Court’s decision would determine the constitutional path to redress.

Moreover, confronted with the likelihood of huge damages and restraint of its illegal conduct, OPEC, or some of its members, might seek a settlement establishing production goals that would provide a price closer to actual costs. The probable reduction in the price of heating fuel and gas at the pump might exceed the amount of the current federal stimulus package.

If the president allowed the states to sue OPEC, his actions would undoubtedly anger political leaders in the Middle East and create the need for diplomatic initiatives to limit the fallout. But how stable is the Middle East right now? And isn’t starting a lawsuit better than starting a war?

Thomas W. Evans, who was an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, is the author of “The Education of Ronald Reagan.”

This clown knows perfectly well that the US and Israel as well as Europe are conspiring to bomb, bomb, bomb all the OPEC countries one by one. We got our claws into Iraq. Now perhaps dear Mr. Evans can talk about suing his Exxon Mobile buddies? Put them in prison, I say! With those hedge fund liars. But no, Evans blames high prices on OPEC. OPEC should pump more and more oil! As fast as possible! Right!

Talk about a fast road to hell. This will drive us over the Hubbert Oil Peak in no time flat. Just publishing trash like this editorial is dangerous. They already suspect we plan to destroy them in the Apocalypse. They, in turn, are rapidly buying us out and hope to own us just like the Chinese now own us. Both the Chinese and Arabs know this would be the 'soft landing' that would prevent WWIII which neither party wants.

China, U.S. sign 10-year energy, environment framework

( Xinhua) -- China and the United States signed a 10-year energy and environment cooperation framework here Wednesday after the two nations concluded their fourth round of Strategic Economic Dialogue, or SED.

Speaking to reporters before the signing ceremony at the U.S. Treasury Department, visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said the deal was "a major achievement of the meeting," which will influence future bilateral economic cooperation and contribute to the sustainable development of the world.

The framework also highlights the great importance and strategic influence of the SED mechanism, he added.

U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson said through the framework, "we will address some of the most important and difficult challenges facing our nations and the world today -- energy security, environmental sustainability and climate change."

As the US frets about OPEC, we struggle to set in stone all sorts of cartels and deals with other empires. We hope this will tie everyone's hands for when we invade Iran, Saudi Arabia and other nations with oil. But China will bankroll this only if we die but they collect the cheap oil! So the world hangs on a very fine thread. The US wants to dominate China but we need cheap oil to do this. China wants cheap oil, too. But China intends to dominate the US. Will this lead to war? It is very possible. This is so similar to the situation between Germany, Japan and England in 1914.

June is Bustin’ Oil All Over!
Michael Fox

According to Rep Peter DeFazio (D-Or), the entity that owns the most oil in the United States right now is not ExxonMobil or Chevron or Valero: it’s Morgan Stanley. So what’s Morgan Stanley doing with all that oil? Speculating on the petrofraud bonanza.
*snip*
2. There is no reason for oil prices to be what they are, because there is no shortage. If there were a shortage, there would be rationing and/or gas lines. We have been through genuine shortages, most recently in 1979. In 1979, the price of gasoline increased from 69¢/gallon to 99¢/gallon, while an OPEC embargo was keeping the flow to a trickle. That was an increase of 43%. With no embargo, why has gasoline gone up over 100% in the past year (it is roughly $5/gallon in Los Angeles today, and was less than $2.50/gallon a year ago)?

So, as Evans rages against OPEC, he overlooks hoarding and price gouging in the US. Our own people are a bunch of sex-mad gnomes who want to get rich no matter who they destroy or even if they betray their own neighbors and doom them to death and destruction. They will talk about wars and then hoard oil and then charge us all an arm and leg for it and then blame the Arabs, of course. This tribal warfare is conducted while ignoring non-tribal members. We are tools, not fellow citizens, in this business.

US limits oil trading in London

Turbulent conditions have made the crude oil market vulnerable to illegal activity, US regulators on Tuesday warned as they imposed limits on the speculative positions on some trades made on overseas exchanges.

Walter Lukken, acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said the environment was "ripe for those wanting to illegally manipulate the markets" and that the agency was "taking constructive steps . . . to make sure there is not excessive speculation driving the markets".

Instead, why not arrest the guys running Goldman Sachs? And their agents within our government starting with the head of the Treasury? This kills two birds with one stone. But of course, this article doesn't mention the business about Goldman Sachs making up for lost profits by oil speculating and hoarding!

Wall Street Lobbies to Protect Speculative Oil Trades

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wall Street banks and other large financial institutions have begun putting intense pressure on Congress to hold off on legislation that would curtail their highly profitable trading in oil contracts -- an activity increasingly blamed by lawmakers for driving up prices to record levels.

Representatives of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, along with the trade associations for hedge funds and other financial groups, have lobbied the offices of key legislators, briefed senior staffers on committees that oversee pivotal parts of the energy markets and distributed research materials explaining their view about oil and how it's traded.

HAHAHA. Imagine the bribes they are handing out to politicians to allow them to speculate in oil futures and drive the price far and beyond that which OPEC has asked for! The more Congress talks about this, the more money flows into their bank accounts! So they will talk and talk but do nothing except paper over the crime and Goldman Sachs will talk sweet and do some hat trick and then life will go on....with the talk turning to war. War will fix high oil prices!

Gads! Anyone looking at the timelines of wars and oil prices can see that never do wars cause oil prices to drop. Peace does that. It doesn't matter who wins, either. War=high oil prices, peace=low oil prices.

IMF To Investigate Factors Behind Oil Price Surge

The International Monetary Fund will prepare an analysis of the real and financial factors behind the recent surge in oil and commodity prices, their volatility, and the effects on the global economy, Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

Responding to a call by the Group of Eight (G8) major industrial nations, Strauss-Kahn said that as part of the analysis, the IMF would look into the possible role of financial market speculation in the recent price hikes.

"How important it is and what kind of influence it has on the market and futures is something we have to investigate," he told reporters in Osaka, Japan after the June 13-14 meeting.

Strauss-Kahn said it was not clear if speculators were a factor, but that some G8 ministers wanted this looked into. Separately he said that he expected the slowdown in the world economy to rein in oil prices that have touched record highs.

See how the other G7 leaders can't figure out the obvious? If Strauss-Kahn were to read my news service, he would understand exactly what is going on! How can a person who is very deep in the heart of the ruling elites in Europe not know that all the big investment banking houses in Europe and America are all ganging up in the oil futures markets and driving up the cost of oil? Of course, he knows. Everyone knows. HE IS LYING. And the FBI should arrest him. Or Interpol.

A biological, fermentation-based process starting from renewable sugars offers the most compelling economics. However, petroleum products could not be made in this way. Until now.

LS9 Renewable Petroleum™ technology enables the rapid and widespread adoption of renewable transportation fuels. Patent-pending DesignerBiofuels™ products are custom engineered to have higher energetic content than ethanol or butanol; to have fuel properties that are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel; and to be distributed in existing pipeline infrastructure and run in any vehicle.

There are all sorts of clever ways to produce high-energy fuels. And improving vehicles so they run better and more efficiently. After all, even with today's skills, we don't have totally aerodynamic vehicles! They are not made light at all. They have to crash into each other and thus must be heavily armored. There are no spring bumpers on them, for example. About 45 years ago, I suggested the 'bumper car' type of perimeter that would absorb all shocks and cause no damage. Instead, now we have NO bumpers at all on any vehicles, not even trucks. They have fancy quarters that shatter easily and cost a fortune to repair.

So I hope that not only new fuels arise but a whole new system of making cars work. We can't afford this expensive and incompetent style of vehicles for much longer. I really resent paying $1,000 a year on insurance for fixing these stupid, fragile, useless car bodies.

'World's first' superconducting car

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. has developed an electric vehicle with a motor that uses superconducting technology.

The car will be displayed at an environment fair in Sapporo from June 19 to 21. Boasting a high motor torque, it has a maximum speed of 85 kph. At 30 kph, it can run for 2 hours.

Applying superconductivity technology, so far used for linear motor trains, to road vehicles is a world first, according to officials who unveiled a prototype car here Thursday.

I hope this creativity increases. It will, so long as we realize there are limits to cheap oil and cheap credit.

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Oil Shoots Up Due To Platform Fire In Norway

June 16, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Right on the heels of the joyous glee over the fake news that Saudi Arabia's declining oil fields will flood the earth with black goo, there is an oil rig fire in Norway and the world price of oil, instead of dropping, shoots upwards to new highs! This is a classic sign that we are at the Hubbert Oil Peak: consumption is outstripping output. Either the world consumes less or we pump more and there ain't no more 'more', is there? Also, the biggest oil consortiums are cutting back on US retail outlets. They plan to drop this entirely. No profits there!

Crude Oil Rises to Record $139.89 as Dollar Drops Against Euro

June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to a record $139.89 a barrel in New York as a weaker dollar bolstered the appeal of commodities as a hedge, and a fire cut North Sea output.

The U.S. currency fell as much as 0.8 percent against the euro, making commodity purchases cheaper to foreign investors. StatoilHydro ASA's 150,000 barrel-a-day Oseberg oil and gas field off the Norwegian coast was shut after a fire broke out in a high-voltage room on a platform yesterday.

This all happened overnight. When I finished the previous story about the housing bubble history at midnight, I checked the news and there was nothing about a fire and the price of oil had dropped a tad due to the news the Saudis were going to wave a magic wand and a gusher in the desert would shower us with cheap oil. Now, harsh reality reenters and smashes all the oil market shorts.

From the Associated Press June 16, 2008:

(AP) — Norwegian oil company StatoilHydro ASA says it has halted oil and gas production on a North Sea platform after a fire broke out.

The operator says the fire was soon extinguished on the Oseberg A platform on Sunday afternoon and there was no need to evacuate personnel. The rig is situated 80 miles northwest of the port city of Bergen on Norway's western coast.

This was not a big fire. We have had much, much, much worse fires in the past. Each one of these did affect oil markets but not to the sudden degree this smaller rig fire has caused. Indeed, it took full-scale destruction of a number of Gulf of Mexico oil rigs during the disastrous hurricane season two years ago to have any effect on oil prices. In other words, the price of oil was dropping two years ago due to less consumption and oil in Saudi Arabia in 2005-2006 was being pumped and sold at a record rate. So it took vast destruction to get prices to go up. Since then, the Saudi pumping has flagged considerably by over a million barrels a day and this loss means world oil supplies are tight as a drum for the foreseeable future. Perhaps, for good.

From the official 'Oil Rig Disaster' web page:

Rig:
Piper Alpha Platform
Date:
06 Jul 1988
Location:
Block 15, UK Continental Shelf
Operator:
Occidental
Fatalities:
167
History
The Piper Field was discovered by Occidental in January 1973, with the Piper Alpha platform becoming operational in 1976. Located about 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen, the platform initally produced crude oil. In late 1980, gas conversion equipment was installed allowing the facility to produce gas as well as oil. A sub-sea pipeline, shared with the Claymore platform, connected Piper Alpha to the Flotta oil terminal on the Orkney Islands. Piper Alpha also had gas pipelines connecting it to both the Tartan platform and to the separate MCP-O1 gas processing platform. In total, Piper Alpha had four main transport risers: an oil export riser, the Claymore gas riser, the Tartan gas riser and the MCP-01 gas riser.

Explosion and Fire
On 06 July 1988, work began on one of two condensate-injection pumps, designated A and B, which were used to compress gas on the platform prior to transport of the gas to Flotta. A pressure safety valve was removed from compressor A for recalibration and re-certification and two blind flanges were fitted onto the open pipework. The dayshift crew then finished for the day.

During the evening of 06 July, pump B tripped and the nightshift crew decided that pump A should be brought back into service. Once the pump was operational, gas condensate leaked from the two blind flanges and, at around 2200 hours, the gas ignited and exploded, causing fires and damage to other areas with the further release of gas and oil. Some twenty minutes later, the Tartan gas riser failed and a second major explosion occurred followed by widespread fire. Fifty minutes later, at around 2250 hours, the MCP-01 gas riser failed resulting in a third major explosion. Further explosions then ensued, followed by the eventual structural collapse of a significant proportion of the installation.

167 men died as a result of the explosions and fire on board the Piper Alpha, including two operators of a Fast Rescue Craft. 62 men survived, mostly by jumping into the sea from the high decks of the platform. Between 1988 and 1990, the two-part Cullen Inquiry established the causes of the tragedy and made recommendations for future safety regimes offshore. 106 recommendations were made which were subsequently accepted and implemented by the offshore operators.

I remember that rig fire. The poor crew had no escape methods except to jump from a very high platform into the raging, frigid North Sea. The oil rigs were supposed to be powerful and safe at the same time. This was false! In one terrible winter storm, an entire platform vanished into the raging seas! The people who work these rigs are like Chinese coal miners: risking life and limb in very harsh conditions. Unlike coal workers, they are well-paid. But the dangers are great. Indeed, unlike oil facilities on land, the crew can't live a safe distance from danger. They literally live right on top of the volatile energy source!

Just ferrying the workers to and from these rigs is difficult and dangerous. There is little room for carelessness. One thoughtless action can trigger an inferno. The nervous effects of listening to violent storm winds howling outside also takes its toll. We drive around in comfort, free as a lark if we aren't stuck in a traffic jam, all the while, consuming oil that takes people's lives. Our comfort and pleasures are thanks to others taking great risks.

And the price of oil reflects some of this. We are seeing the price of risk rise as oil supplies come to peak production. What sort of difficult places will be drilled next? Russia is already staking out the Artic Ocean basin for exploration! That is truly harsh conditions. Also, there is Greenland and the Antarctic, both of which probably have vast oil reservoirs of oil. Here are some other oil rig fires that are from the last couple of years:

From Royal Dutch Shell Nov. 26, 2007:

BBC News: Scots ’should handle’ oil safety:
First Minister Alex Salmond has said the Scottish Government should handle North Sea offshore safety.
He was speaking as an investigation got under way into the cause of a major fire that broke out on a platform.
More than 100 workers were evacuated from the Thistle Alpha platform after Sunday’s fire but no-one was hurt.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said its inspectors would visit the site, 120 miles north-west of Shetland, as soon as weather conditions allowed.

From the Pentagon May 31, 2006:

The quick response of two USS Port Royal crew members saved the life of an Iraqi contract worker overcome by smoke inhalation while fighting a fire here May 26.
As part of Commander, Task Group 158.1 emergency response team, Chief Petty Officer Doreen Lehner and Petty Officer 3rd Class Heather Watts were the only medical personnel on the scene when an Iraqi Southern Oil Company worker collapsed due to smoke inhalation.

Injuries from smoke inhalation and the toxic by-products of combustion in fires account for 75 percent of fire-related deaths in the U.S. Typically, the victim's lungs fill up with mucus and fluid, making it difficult to breathe.

From CNBC November 21, 2007:

A fire on a Mexican offshore oil platform cut off 422 barrels per day (bpd) of production on Tuesday, state-owned energy monopoly Pemex said, a tiny fraction of Mexico's overall output.

The fire broke out at the Kab-121 well on the Kab-101 platform, which was damaged in an earlier blaze on Oct. 23 that killed 21 workers.
*snip*
The state-controlled firm also has been struck this year by a small Marxist rebel group that twice bombed onshore fuel pipelines, crippling chunks of industry for several days.

From the BBC July 28, 2005:

The number of confirmed deaths in Wednesday's oil platform fire off the western coast of India has risen to 10.
However, the navy says more than 350 workers have been rescued. Some people are still reported trapped or missing.

The platform, in India's most important oil field, was completely destroyed in the fire, which emergency services managed to extinguish late Wednesday.

It is obvious that oil rig fires, far from vanishing, are very much with us. The means of putting out these fires has improved greatly. But they still happen. Now on to the other news today, the major oil producers and refiners are no longer selling us gasoline directly. They are withdrawing behind an army of sub-contractors. This way, they become invisible and thus, not the subject of consumer ire.

Minyanville: Exxon Latest in Gas Station Exodus

Most operators barely turn a profit on the gas they sell, raking in a whopping 11 cents per gallon, according to The Wall Street Journal. Stations buy the gas from refiners, who purchase crude on the open market or drill for it themselves. Oil prices have been rising faster than refined gasoline prices, so margins have been shrinking for the retail operators.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) announced yesterday it's had it with the measly returns on selling gas to consumers. Following the industry trend away from the retail gas station business, the oil giant plans to unload the 2,200 stations it still owns.

I was talking to the guy I buy diesel from who runs the gas station where I photograph prices all the time. He told me, he would be happy to get 11¢ on the gallon! He only gets 2¢ a gallon. And a lot of fury and grief from his customers. He told me that people are buying less and less at his market and the competition is killing him due to rapidly rising prices. He pays more and more for his merchandise but can't charge more and more due to competition. He was very bitter about this.

'You are my main source for diesel!' I told him, shaking my head. He agreed that I was a good customer who understood him. It was very sad, talking to him. All around me, I see things shutting down or going away. Once this process is over, there will be a lot less competition to choose from and I will have to travel further to get what I need. This is how inflation can be a big killer.

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Fake Saudi Oil Promises

June 15, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The Ides of June when the interstellar debris from comet Enke menaces the planet---we always forget the greatest dangers to humanity aside from ourselves, are celestial. But since we cannot control the stars, the moon or ourselves, we are content to talk about oil and how much we desire this product of geology and dead creatures in the past. Some of whom were killed suddenly by celestial objects. Saudi Arabia is talking down oil this week in an effort to convince everyone, there is no Hubbert Oil Peak and SA is falling down the back slope of this St. Moritz of goo. The G7 celebrate this supposed rescue. I am much more skeptical.

Saudis willing to act to bring oil prices down: UN chief

(AFP) — OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia views skyrocketing oil prices as "abnormally high" and is willing to do what it can to bring them down, visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday.
*snip*
Media reports have suggested Riyadh plans to raise output next month by about half a million barrels a day to 10 million barrels, a possible sign it is becoming nervous about the political and economic effect of high prices.

The Saudis claim to have the biggest oil reserves on earth. But there is no proof of this. The Saudis claim they can flood world oil markets at will like they foolishly did in the past when they tried to kill Iran and Iraq's oil profits. Once upon a time, SA could do this. Once upon a time, they could simply increase output by fiat. Today, this is long gone.

The Saudis treat oil information as top secret. They don't let outsiders poke around to see what the water/oil mix is for the famous Ghawar oil fields. The Saudis constantly tell us, they are upping their pumping of oil to over 10 million barrels a day. I have heard this siren song nearly all my life, by the way. This is why today's news made me laugh sardonically. HAHA. Right! They will raise it to that level again and again and again! Here is a timeline, by the way:

From Wikipedia:

1980 Saudi Government acquires 100 percent participation interest in Aramco, purchasing almost all of the company's assets.

1981 East-West Pipelines, built for Aramco natural gas liquids and crude oil, link Eastern Province fields with Yanbu on the Red Sea.

1982 King Fahd visits Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, on Aramco's 50th Anniversary to inaugurate the Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center (EXPEC), a milestone in the Saudization of the company's operations.
1984 Company acquires its first four supertankers.

1987 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline expansion project is completed, boosting capacity to 3.2 million barrels (510,000 m³) per day.

1988 Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, is established.

1989 High-quality oil and gas are discovered south of Riyadh - the first find outside original operating area.
1991 Company plays major role combating Persian Gulf oil spill, the world's largest.

1992 East-West Crude Oil Pipeline capacity is boosted to 5 million barrels (800,000 m³) per day. Saudi Aramco affiliate purchases 35% interest in SsangYong Oil Refining Company (or S-Oil) of the Republic of Korea.

1993 Saudi Aramco takes charge of Kingdom's domestic refining, marketing, distribution and joint-venture refining interests by buying Jeddah-based Saudi Arabian Marketing and Refining Company (SAMAREC).

1994 Maximum sustained crude-oil production capacity is returned to 10 million barrels (1,600,000 m³) per day. Company acquires a 40% equity interest in Petron, largest refiner in the Philippines.

Note that in 1994, the oil was being pumped at...10 million barrels a day. And world oil prices were...falling to record lows! Saudi Arabia was flirting with bankruptcy as the wild spending royals ran out of finances. The most likely reason for all the oil that year was because both Saddam and Iran had to pay for past wars and were frantically selling oil. On top of all this, the Soviets collapsed and Yeltsin opened wide the energy production of Russia to looting by the Western powers. The Saudi output has bumped up against the 10 million barrel threshold several times in the past. As recently as the war in Iraq, Gulf War II, the Saudis inched it upwards to almost 11 million barrels a day, but only very briefly.

Here are some older stories about all this:

The US Energy Information Administration:

Saudi Arabia has announced an ambitious $70-billion energy investment plan, $18 billion of which will be directed toward increasing upstream petroleum capacity to an estimated 12 million bbl/d by 2009.

In December 2006, Saudi Aramco announced its 2007 exploration and drilling budget of almost $4 billion - nearly double the draft budget and full quarter of Aramco’s 2007 capital budget. According to Oil Daily reports, Aramco plans to drill 427 onshore and offshore crude oil development wells in 2007. Approximately 134 wells will be in or near Ghawar, while 85 will be drilled in Khurais, and some 50 drilled in Khursaniya.
One challenge for the Saudis in achieving their strategic vision to add production capacity is that their existing fields sustain, on average, 6 to 8 percent annual "decline rates” (as reported by PlattsOilgram) in existing fields, meaning that the country needs around 700,000 bbl/d in additional capacity each year just to compensate for natural decline.

Aramco estimates that the average total depletion for Saudi oil fields is 29 percent, with Abqaiq (the oldest) 74 percent depleted, the giant Ghawar field having produced 48 percent of its proven reserves and the younger Shaybah just 5 percent depleted. Aramco also claims that, if anything, Saudi oil reserves are underestimated, not overestimated. Some analysts have disputed Aramco's optimistic assessments of Saudi oil reserves and future production. Minister Al-Naimi has vigorously refuted these arguments, and stated that Saudi Arabia could add as much as 200 billion barrels of oil to proven reserves after the extended period of investment and exploration. In order to stave off decline, wells are undergoing reservoir management and rehabilitation projects, including the installation of “smart well” technologies.

Here is the graph put out by the energy mavens in the government:

As per usual, I heavily amended it with my own comments. The faint red bar shows the lows and proposed highs. Note how, in 2002, SA dropped production to below 9 million barrels a day. But from the inception of the Gulf War II until the 'victory' of the US over Saddam who was totally disarmed by the outrageous Security Council conspirators, the pumping rose by nearly 3 million barrels a day. This kept the 'war risk premiums' down. Instead of shooting to over $100 a barrel in 2004, the price of oil was stable or even dropped somewhat. This pumping of oil was temporary. It stressed out the entire SA infrastructure. Instantly, the US and Europe colluded together to expand this war into Iran and beyond. The war against the Palestinian peasants and townspeople increased, too. Saudi Arabia began to make demands concerning control over these events.

Which were shoved aside as AIPAC overpowered all of the US political system. Even as the US public has turned sour on wars and high oil prices, the war drums continue to beat louder and louder. Bush was in Europe all this week, banging away like a demented mechanical monkey. The Jewish President of France, instead of cautioning the US on this, has merrily joined in. In retaliation, Saudi Arabia continued to drop oil production from 2005 until this year.

In between headbanging for more war in Europe, Bush and Cheney have been flying in and out of Saudi Arabia, seeking more oil. In return, each visit, the Saudis solemnly swear they are increasing production and then they CUT IT. The official US graph shows this very clearly! The graph also shows us that the US government takes Saudi assurances of more oil very seriously. This is deluded, stupid and pathetic, all at the same time.

First: why should we assume this? The Saudis have reduced or increased oil production on their own basis, not on our desires. We want cheap oil, the cheaper, the better. The Saudis have an obligation to not pump out all their oil. The Iranians are sitting on a huge reservoir of oil which is NOT being madly pumped out of the ground. This is like money in a very nice bank: it increases in value the more the Saudis deplete their own oil banking account. If the US and Europe prevent Iran from selling this precious resource, when the full effects of the Hubbert Oil Peak manifest itself in the near future, Iran will be sitting in a very powerful position. All they need is protectors who can keep the US at bay: China and Russia.

Graph from Econbrowser:

This graph clearly shows that the Saudis are now, quite suddenly frantically prospecting for more oil. This is a sure sign that they need to find new well heads or else. This troubles them greatly. Although the corruption of easy money has caused them to slide into moral decay and personal rot, they know about the Hubbert Oil Peak and what will happen to them. As King Faisal noted long ago before being assassinated in 1975, his people would go from camels to cars and back to camels in less than 100 years.

He was a fried of my father. He listened to my father talk about the Hubbert Oil Peak and the dire need for Saudi Arabia to develop alternative energy systems like solar and wind energy, both of which are very great in the Desert. The King was also very concerned about the flood of money and how it would corrupt his own family. He was very interested in limiting both. He was aware of the Cave of Death and how infinite money leads to terrible problems just as poverty can destroy a people. But he was not allowed to monitor the flow of oil, it was 'open the spigots and let the money in' time after his death.

From the US Department of Energy:

This graph shows that SA oil production has been mostly flat the last 20 years. Middle Eastern oil has been dropping. This drop off is due to Iran being squeezed by the US and Europe. This squeeze play is irritating the Japanese and Chinese oil consumers but they won't say anything...yet...because they both want to keep flooding the US markets with imports. The US knows this and takes advantage of this. Not that this is good! It simply means, we get high oil prices while getting nothing but lies about what is causing it. Note that this graph clearly shows that Eurasia's oil is not increasing. Indeed, the very sudden and near total collapse of the British North Sea oil fields is at the bottom of the collapse in oil output, aside from the artificial decrease caused by US/UK/EU colonial projects in the Middle East.

By the way, the Iraqis who are negotiating with the US over our 'defense' of Iraq are playing increasing hard ball games. They know that if they cut their own oil production, prices will soar very high indeed. Unlike Saudi royals, they have no dogs to hunt in the US/UK/EU economies. If these economies collapse, they won't shed a tear. I suspect, they would celebrate. The Shi'ites know that Time Is On Their Side. They know the US and its minions plan to bomb, bomb, bomb Shi'ites in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. They know the Saudis want to bomb, bomb, bomb them too. But they also know that they, not the Saudis, control world oil prices.

The Shi'as can crater the entire planet's financial systems if they so wish. And they are very tempted.

From the Oil Drum---- January, 2007:

Further when the CERA list on which it appears was reviewed here in Sept 05, Interloafer quoted Matt Simmons in expressing some cynicism about Aramco ability to sustain the higher levels of production projected for these fields. Peter Jackson, of CERA, disagrees (pdf file) The project currently appears to be on schedule.

Now it should be born in mind that the Saudi Strategic Energy Initiative is to have enough spare capacity to be able, by June of this year, to replace Iran’s production, should there be a problem. And, for this reason, it is perhaps a little presumptive to assume that they are currently producing at a maximum level. However, it should be noted that this also assumes that the three-field increased production will be on line by that time. As noted above, it now appears that it will be later in the year before this happens.

Musing about these numbers, what struck me was that we are now seeing increments in production coming from multiple fields rather than just further development of a single one. After the first new increment for Shaybah comes on line, work for which is now underway, (but which may now be only 200,000 bd by April of 2008, with another 300,000 bd being added by 2010) the next development, Khurais, is also going to be a three-field project . It will also include the Abu Jifan and Mazalij fields, and will need injection of an additional 4.5 mbd of treated water into those fields to achieve that production level.

This graph has quite different data from the official Energy Department's graphs! And who do we trust? The lying bastards who run our government? Or anyone else? I happen to think that the good people running The Oil Drum have a much better track record for honesty and careful analysis. Not that the amount of oil pumped NEVER exceeded 10 million barrels a day! And I happen to subscribe to this number, too. And it trails off starting in 2006 which coincides with the end of the housing bubble. This graph shows how the price of oil began its steep climb as the Saudi fields pumped slightly less oil.

But of course, this climb is more due to hoarding of oil as the G7 nations prepare for Gulf War III as they push the envelope. The price climb has been much steeper starting in April for the simple reason, the US public has sat idle as the last three candidates for President vied with 'who is the worst war criminal' award. Far from expressing rage over a past war, there is indifference about a future war. This is entirely due to the media that muffled or outright lied about the real anti-war candidates. Kucinich, my personal favorite, recently read off the charges of impeachment in the House which was rapidly buried in committee. This startling attempt at forcing the government to face reality was virtually totally ignored by the warmongers who own most of our media and who dream of dominating the Middle East and wiping out the Palestinian people.

The oil we want from Saudi Arabia is really human blood. We don't think about it this way because we don't want to have this charged against us. But it is the truth. The US public could take note of what is going on in DC just like they can see for themselves that the media is lying about nearly everything. But seeking information is hazardous because the online community if full of liars, con artists and fakers who want to mislead or misdirect people. They join the mainstream in this effort at delusional deception.

It is very hard to hack through all of this. We can only apply ourselves to look at the hard facts and to see when there are NO hard facts, only suppositions. In the case of the super-secretive Saudis, we can only guess beforehand. But we know from the past, what is possible. The idea that they can easily add 3 million more barrels WHILE keeping up present rates from older wells is PURE INSANITY. The old saying, 'Don't count your eggs before they hatch' are very true here.

If we goof off hoping for this bonanza, we will be in very dire straits when it doesn't happen. Aside from the other uncertainties about war. Namely, that Saudi Arabia can protect its wells, the transportation systems, the Gulf of Hormuz all at the same time, 100%, as Iran is attacked by Israel and the US---THIS IS PURE INSANITY.

When Big Brown cracked his hoof before the final race of the Triple Crown, us horse owners shook our heads in dismay. We knew this horse was finished at barely 3 years of age and would probably have to be put down. Instead, the poor thing was raced and limped in dead last. Yet thousands of fools betted on him. Stupidly. As the owner and the media lied about the probability of the horse even making one circuit around the track!

They lie all the time. They know they are lying which makes this worse. They need bettors to be fools. Just as they are treated by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. A fool has to be born every minute so they can be fooled. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, own the media.

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Diesel Riots In Spain

June 13, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The energy/inflation crisis is hammering the nations with the strongest currency and the strongest economy: Europe. Riots and insurrections are sweeping across Europe in between soccer riots, heh. I remember 1968 when sporting venues and movie times became great triggers fro fun in the streets with the military forces. Oil ceases shooting upwards because the US and Israel both have backed off of talk about annihilating Iran. Also, England is suffering from the sudden loss of North Sea oil and gas. This was totally unexpected. And the rulers want to change the energy markets including killing off the new Iranian oil bourse that won't accept dollars.

Europe: Oil's Brave New World

Since 1999, Europe has increased oil imports more than 20%--just slightly less than the amount consumed by Germany in 2007--to compensate for declining domestic production. In other words, Europe is running out of oil and scrambling to secure new supplies to fill the losses.

And those losses are coming more quickly than predicted, primarily in the once-prodigious oil fields of the North Sea. After peaking in 2001, production in the North Sea, Europe's largest reserve of oil and gas, plunged. In 2006, after six years of consecutive declines, the North Sea produced nearly 2 million barrels of oil per day less than it had six years earlier, roughly equivalent to the amount France consumes annually.
*snip*
Europe, of course, is far from alone. For the first time in decades, global oil production fell for two consecutive years in 2006 and 2007. The combined impact of declining supplies and raging energy demand has redefined the economics of crude oil. Outside of OPEC, oil supplies cannot expand to increases in demand as quickly or cheaply as many believed it would if oil prices climbed high enough.

There is an army of 'there is no Hubbert Oil Peak' writers out there who would dearly love to have everyone believe in Tinker Bell and Santa Claus. There is a deep seated human motivation to desire some god like creature to come and shower wealth and goodies from a horn of plenty on top of us. This comes from our eviction from the jungles of Africa a million years ago when the Ice Ages forced the naked, crazy apes on the fringe of the Sahara to evolve into human beings. As the other great apes contented themselves to an ever-smaller jungle, the humanoids moved off across the forbidding plains where lions and snakes, eagles and vultures, crocodiles and hippos snapped or stalked. We discovered fire! And Lucifer saved us and made us what we are today: lovers of burning stuff.

Let's be frank: we burn dead things, we burn trees, we burn bushes. We burn witches. Yikes! Cross that off the list! So what if she floats like a duck. We also figured how to build bridges out of wood [but not witches, pace Monty Python]. The main thing is, we want endless fuel as well as endless Funny Money™. We want endless food and we don't eat termites, either. The plunge in oil and gas extraction from the North Sea oil rigs is a disaster. It shows very, very clearly how the downslope of a classic Hubbert Oil Peak for oil fields can be very swift. He talked about this, of course. Being a genius.

He surmised that the natural pressure of compressed biomatter that makes up most oil reserves means the pressure will be great for the first half but once a field if half-exhausted, the pressure collapses and thus, the trail off of pumping is very much steeper than the increase in exploitation of these fields. I know from pumping wells that if a well is fully 'charged', the water comes quickly and with little energy used to pump it up. When there is a drought, the well dries up and pumping is difficult. Another well problem is, if you hydro fract the well, water flows fast for a few years. Then, over time, it is reduced as fine particulates sift into the cracks and slowly fill them in, inhibiting the flow.

With oil wells, it is very much the same. Usually, sea water is pumped into the ground to recharge the pressure so oil can be pumped out. Then, the water has to be separated from the oil. The greatest oil fields on earth like the ones in Saudi Arabia now have to use sea water to pressurize the wells. The North Sea oil fall off is a warning sign that many of the more exotic and difficult oil fields may be also subject to such sudden collapses. Hubbert, of course, predicted this too! He figured the oil fields that were easiest to find were also under the least pressure and therefore, had the richest collection of biofuels and thus, easy to pump for longer. But the deeper or more exotic locations would prove to also be weaker in various ways. It was all based on the principle of 'easy find/lots of goodies versus hard to find/hard to hold.'

So far, the collapse of the North Sea oil fields proves he, not the nay sayers, is right. Readers send me articles from authors trying to prove Hubbert wrong. They are all very sad to read. One article exclaims that since oil companies and countries all hoard oil, there is no Hubbert Oil Peak! This is very infantile. Of course everyone is hoarding! No one hoards when there is no shortage! They ALWAYS hoard when there are looming shortages! DUH! Far from refuting the Hubbert Oil Peak, this confirms it.

'SCAB' DRIVER BURNED IN HIS LORRY AS EUROPEAN PROTESTS AGAINST HIGH FUEL PRICES TURN VIOLENT

Some of the worst outbreaks were seen in Spain where prime minister José Luis Rodriguez pledged 'zero tolerance' of any disruption by 90,000 striking lorry drivers.

His warning came after a driver breaking the strike was burned when his lorry was set on fire.

People point to union violence and then say, 'This means unions are evil.' I say, 'Power grows out of the barrel of a gun' or rather, Mao wrote that and since he is dead, I will steal it. Heh. But this is the harsh reality of life: people MUST fight or die. If union members can't kill scabs, scabs will overrun the union since they are protected by the bosses and the state! The only way workers can wrest power or rights or profits is to FIGHT LIKE HELL. When the US unions all became sissies, they ceased to exist. We have no unions. They can't fight back. When they are ordered off the job or out of the factory and are replaced by scabs or it is sold to the Chinese, our workers go home to die. They don't lift a finger.

This battle in Europe will spread. The US can go the alternative route and turn all US workers into slaves or the workers wake up and start to push back hard like they do in Europe.

Fuel strike: Petrol stations starting to run out

Petrol stations began running out of fuel this morning as a four-day strike by Shell tanker drivers sparked a wave of panic buying among motorists and the effects began to spread to other fuel companies.

Several Shell garages in the south of England predicted they would run dry within hours because of the strike affecting two companies that deliver to Shell's more than 900 filling stations - around a tenth of petrol stations around the UK.

Some tanker drivers with other companies refused to cross picket lines at depots, leading to fears of more widespread shortages. The government called for drivers to be calm.

The European workers know that they must paralyze their own cities if they want to contest with the government and the bankers for power. They know that if they merely vote like in the US, the rich will then bribe all the winners to work for them, not for the voters. If all parties are owned by either foreigners or rich people, they end up totally ignoring the voters who vote for them and they don't care since there is no alternative, even if a total maverick is voted in, this person will either be bribed or KILLED. And remember: the ruling elites will eliminate anyone in their path if necessary. They are not even slightly shy about using brute force.

US regulator CFTC calls for curbs on oil trading in London

A rift has opened between regulators in Washington and London after the Americans called for restrictions on oil trading in the City.

It is understood that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is resisting calls by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to introduce daily price limits on some oil futures contracts.

The Americans also want to cap the amount of particular oil contracts that a trader can hold. The moves would limit the ability of a trading firm or individual trader to corner the market in one type of futures oil contract.

The price cap measure, which exists in American energy markets, has been devised to stem sharp rises in the price of a particular commodity. However, London regulators believe that the market should determine the price of an asset, rather than it being limited by a daily price cap.

Crimping the speculators will buy the ruling elites time to rig the markets. But of course, the global energy market is NOT controlled by them at all! And their agents in places like Saudi Arabia are now too rich and powerful to be manipulated, intimidated or controlled. The older method of marrying daughters to rich kings and dukes is a no-go for the simple reason, the life style of these oil lords is not fun for the females of the ruling elites. This is why my own parents never took me to Saudi Arabia when they did business there. All the Western girls who were upper class who married into Arab oil all got divorced and ran off.

Oil Rally of 697% Surpassed Dot-Com Craze in Speculators' Mania

The rally that drove oil to a record $139.12 a barrel last week surpassed the gains in Internet stocks that preceded the dot-com crash in 2000.

Crude rose 697 percent since trading at $17.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in November 2001, and reached 28 record highs this year. The last time a similar pattern was seen in equities was eight years ago, when Internet-related stocks sent the Nasdaq Composite Index up 640 percent to its highest level ever, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Bespoke Investment Group LLC.

The Nasdaq tumbled 78 percent from its March 2000 peak, erasing about $6 trillion of market value, as investors concluded that prices weren't supported by profits at companies such as Broadcom Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. Billionaire investor George Soros and Stephen Schork, president of Schork Group Inc., say oil is ready to tumble because prices aren't justified by supply and demand.

Oil is worth whatever people are willing to pay. So far, I still see gas guzzlers whizzing about at high speeds. I still do not see lots of bikes, for example. In the seventies and eighties, I saw bikes. I rode bikes. But not this cycle, not yet. 700% is a huge inflation rate. And this has burrowed into all other financial systems. The many levels of dislocations caused by most of the Funny Money flowing into oil pumping nations while the oil consuming nations struggle with their individual Hubbert Oil Peak events, all of this is coupled with the looming war with Iran.

Neither China nor Russia want this. China wants peaceful Olympics. Russia wants secure oil markets. More about both later.

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Understanding The Hubbert Oil War Peak

June 10, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

A huge number of thunderstorms are heading this way fast! Hope to get this story in as fast! Oil is no longer rising fast. Aren't we lucky? But the causes of high oil prices are still there and indeed, getting worse by the day. The problem is war. The US and Israel are very obviously pushing the planet into a totally ridiculous confrontation with Iran. Saudi Arabia hopes to control world oil prices but they really never could in the past nor in the future. This is due to the royals being big playboy spenders. They will just have to kiss Citibank bye-bye. And diesel is being ruthlessly bid up. I see no end to oil's climb. But hark! The dollar is strong thanks to everyone heaving and hoeing until the yen got very weak. Happiness for everyone and the US goes off the cliff.

U.S. Economy: Trade Gap Grew in April on Oil Imports

The U.S. trade deficit widened in April as the surge in oil prices propelled imports to a record, overshadowing the biggest gain in exports in four years.

The gap grew 7.8 percent to $60.9 billion, more than forecast and the most since March 2007, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding petroleum, the shortfall was little changed. March's deficit was revised lower.

The figures led some economists to estimate that first- quarter growth was greater than previously estimated by the government, even as fuel prices push imports higher. The dollar's two-year slide, coupled with stronger growth in Europe and Asia, is spurring demand for planes built by Boeing Co. and machinery made by Deere & Co.

``The hyper-competitiveness of the dollar, plus reasonable growth in our export markets, that combination has proven to be very powerful,'' said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. in New York. ``Trade's been a buffer; it's kept GDP in positive territory. It's clearly a cushion.''

It doesn't matter ONE FIG how much we export if our trade DEFICIT grows. This simple equation should be shouted out whenever anyone talks about trade. So what, if we sell more Boeings? This is NOT BRINGING JOBS HERE! Far from it. I have written a great deal about Boeing. All the nations with trade surpluses with us fix this by buying our food or Boeing jets. Period. They buy little else! The Boeing contracts are virtually NEVER with buyers, they are always negotiated by DIPLOMATS. And they are characterized by a lot of tit for tat trading. And one of the teats of tit is for Boeing to install facilities in the countries bidding for the jets. Period. Either Boeing has half of the work done overseas so they buy other jets! I have Boeing readers here. People who work for the parent organization in Seattle. They send emails detailing how this works.

So Boeing may make the bottom line look better but IT IS NOT GOOD. It is not making us a greater industrial power. Boeing is being stripped of a lot of its technological and machinery work force. Also, the article above has our foolish representatives who deal with our continuous and terrible trade deficits talking happily about how 'powerful' it is to have a weak dollar! Only today's news is all about how the dollar is...STRONGER. Certainly, the yen is dropping rapidly to the intense delight of the Japanese! I do wish our 'experts' had bigger brains than an addlepated hen hit by a shovel.

Diesel Beats Gasoline as Traders Bet on Widest Spread

Diesel, the world's most-used transport fuel, is so prized by traders they'll pay the biggest premiums in at least 15 years to buy it.

Because refiners can't make enough, diesel sells for $145 a ton, or 14 percent, more than gasoline as China halts exports, the Middle East boosts imports and power shortages force mines from Australia to Chile to run oil-fed generators. For the first time, refiners Valero Energy Corp. and ConocoPhillips this summer will make more money from diesel than gasoline in the Northern Hemisphere, said Andrew Reed, an analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Boston.

``Diesel is in the driver's seat now, and will be at least in the next few years,'' said Anthony Nunan, assistant general manager for risk management in Tokyo at Mitsubishi Corp., Japan's largest trading company. ``About 43 percent of the world's gasoline is consumed in the U.S., and with high prices and a soft economy, that market is stalling.''

Diesel is way up. I buy diesel and it is screamingly expensive now. The weak dollar means we can't compete in world markets for diesel. And we don't produce enough. Those giant super big ships pouring into the US from Asia and Europe use diesel in gigantic quantities. The 'free trade' dynamics=high diesel prices to fuel these massive ships that transfer goods from where they are produced to mainly the US or the Arab oil pumping kingdoms.

The Arab oil kingdoms don't worry about the price of diesel going way up. They are the sellers. The US has an energy deficit as well as a trade deficit so we get hit with a double whammy. During the last year, the US roiled world oil markets on two fronts: the idiotic, continuous and ruinous push to isolate Iran and shut off all of Iran's oil sales and our cutting interest rates to make our currency worthless. So we are all suffering from painful inflation even as our exports rise but this does NO GOOD AT ALL since we have to import so much fuel! Since many American elites make oodles of money doing this, I doubt any of this will change any time soon. We could tax them all and if they refuse to pay, confiscate their estates, raid their bank accounts, sail our huge, expensive navy to all those lovely UNDEFENDED offshore pirate coves and thus, fix our budget imbalances, our finances, etc. How about it?

Frightened rich people have suddenly surrounded Obama and are forming a phalanx around him to insure he serves them and not us. If they gave Senator Clinton and her wayward husband over $120 million in 5 years, they certainly can pay Obama double that since he will have real power. Rubin has shuffled over to Obama's side this weekend and is now advising him. So much for 'change'. More about that later, after the thunderstorms.

Out of Control, Pt 2
By John Riley

Chief Strategist

The investment superstar has been Oil. It keeps chugging along and this week, as if to remind everyone that it still had some game in it, it put together back to back records, record single day advances and record high closing prices.

Fundamentals are strong and getting stronger for oil. Consumption keeps going up and supply can’t keep up. Then throw in the potential for a new Middle Eastern war, (take your pick, it could be the US vs Iran or Israel vs Iran or ???), and you add on a war premium that could go up to …. We won’t even speculate.

This is yet another area that the Fed has no control over. Unless the Fed has been dabbling in shuttle diplomacy on the side, this is an area way out of their sphere of control.

This guy is a financial wizard and advisor. Note how stupid he is. The US has total control over war with Iran. All we have to do is warn Israel, they attack Iran, we will stop giving them billions and billions and billions in free money as well as letting them hijack our entire diplomatic corps, our Congress and our President! Since we won't do this and Obama has decided to be a Zionist puppet, we get more and more wars in the Middle East which will only end with the Apocalypse. The Fed can stop this looming war by stopping the war. We are not helpless leaves in the gutter, spinning towards the drain. We are supposedly the greatest power on earth, HAHAHA.

People betting on oil futures better beware: if we do have a war, all of this will be confiscated by the government. They have an ugly history of doing this. Of course, they will only hammer the little speculators, not Exxon/Mobile. Be forewarned. This is why even Wall Street bettors better be antiwar.

New forces fraying U.S.-Saudi oil ties

By the end of 2007, it was also apparent that the Saudis no longer believed they could substantially affect prices by increasing production. Now, Saudi oil experts believe that the price run-up is due to such factors as investor speculation, the weak dollar and limited output from such key producers as Iraq, Iran and Venezuela.

"They see themselves as having lost control of the market," Priddy said.

The weakening of the economic ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia comes when the Saudi government has increasingly sought to distance itself politically from Washington.

Even as the United States has tried to forge a coalition of Persian Gulf states to counter Iran, Saudi officials have grown skeptical about a security alliance with Washington.

Instead, leaders of the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab kingdom worry that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has weakened their security and fret about the Shiite Muslim domination of Iraq. Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor, recently acknowledged to reporters that the war has been a "stress" on the relationship.

The Saudis are not 'distancing themselves'. The US is rushing off screaming, 'Hug me, kiss me, I'm your slave for life,' at Israeli leaders under inditement for taking bribes! The Saudis have been sending out feelers and already are discounting Obama as a potential ally. If Obama hands Jerusalem over to the Jews only, this means the Saudi Royals will invite the Chinese into their golden palaces and make a deal we refused. The Chinese are very aware of this and most anxious to please the Saudis and gain control of Saudi oil export markets. In return, they will defend Saudi Arabia and guess what WWIII will look like?

Saudi Arabia seeks oil price curb

Saudi Arabia says it will call for a meeting of oil producing countries and consumers to discuss soaring oil prices and work to prevent an unjustified rise in prices.

Information and Culture Minister Iyad Madani says the kingdom will work with OPEC to "guarantee the availability of oil supplies now and in the future."

In a statement following the weekly Cabinet meeting on Monday, the minister said Saudi Arabia will also work to control "unwarranted and unnatural" price hikes.

They will eventually not care what a pint of oil costs in the US once they let go of the dollar. This will happen in harmony with the Chinese who will deep six our monetary rule of the planet. The Chinese do not want this burden....yet. But we are already ripe and ready to fall off the tree and go splat on rocky soil. What if the Saudis cease investing in the US? We better think about this possibility.

Oil shortage a myth, says industry insider

There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated.

Although it is widely assumed that the world has reached a point where oil production has peaked and proven reserves have sunk to roughly half of original amounts, this idea is based on flawed thinking, said Richard Pike, a former oil industry man who is now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Current estimates suggest there are 1,200 billion barrels of proven global reserves, but the industry's internal figures suggest this amounts to less than half of what actually exists.

The misconception has helped boost oil prices to an all-time high, sending jitters through the market and prompting calls for oil-producing nations to increase supply to push down costs.

Oil was at an all-time high in the early 1970s due to wars. The Iran/Iraq war in 1980 did the same thing. The Gulf War I also raised the cost of oil. And Gulf War II did the exact same thing. The looming Jewish/Shiite war will be the Mother of all Oil Price Hikes. Period. The world might not yet be at the Hubbert Oil Peak but the US passed its own peak long ago. Namely, we consume far more oil than we pump. If we confined our actions to only oil we pump, we would be just fine. But then, we would have no gas guzzlers or McMansions, either.

There are many, many misconceptions about the Hubbert Oil Peak and all of them are due to wishful thinking, not hard examination of reality. Fact #1: We cannot tell if we are at the peak except after we are at the peak!

This means, we prepare for the inevitability of this peak, not wait passively until it hammers us. Scrambling to retrofit advanced cultures to a world with reductions in availability of oil is murderously hard! Example: all the exurban McMansions will become uninhabitable and utterly worthless. Our transportation system will collapse. Our farming methods will cease. Heating our houses will be hard and cooling them impossible as they stand today!

Fact #2:But we can build for a depressed oil future! It really isn't all that difficult. The more we do to prepare for this, the more the Peak recedes into the future. If we start now by CONSUMING LESS OIL, we will enjoy the remaining oil much longer. The more we do this, the better.

Many years ago when I talked about all this, I said, 'The window of opportunity to rebuild America for a future with less oil will begin to close in 2000.' This is now happening. It will be more and more expensive to retrofit as the years spin past us. We misspent the last 35 years doing the exact opposite of what we should have done. We bought gas guzzlers and built in ridiculous places and climates. We refused to force builders to put solar energy panels on all rooftops. We still fight off wind energy. Everything is totally out of whack and time will run out on us! If the Peak is 40 years from now, my children will be very much alive and my grandchildren will be entering their prime earning years. If we are past the peak then, they will all suffer unless we CHANGE COURSE NOW. Not next year. NOW.

Defying U.S., EU nears deal ending Cuban sanctions

The lifting of EU sanctions would put the 27-member bloc at odds with Washington over Cuba policy.
*snip*
U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierres urged Europe last week to uphold the measures to prevent authorities being able to give the impression human rights were improving on the island. European Union states are nearing agreement on ending sanctions on Cuba in defiance of U.S. calls for continued pressure for democratic reform on the communist island, diplomats said on Tuesday.

Speaking of wars and the above story where that genius idiot claimed the US government doesn't control wars over oil, look at this Cuba story! The US is pushing every button and hitting very hard and using all our diplomatic capital to enforce an embargo on an important oil pumping nation. Europe goes along with this madness. But NOT with Cuba! Poke in the eye, eh? This is because the US won't punish Europe if they kill our embargo. This article also quotes a State Department tool yapping about 'They torture prisoners in Cuba and put them on trial after years of torture! And want to execute people they kidnap from the Middle...OH MY GOD.'

I hope the Europeans help Cuba close our wicked torture prison facility at Gitmo. Wipe this blight off the map. Ship the guards to Siberia and let them work there.

US and EU issue new Iran warning

The EU and the US have threatened Iran with further sanctions unless it verifiably suspends nuclear enrichment.

The measures were announced after US President George W Bush held talks in Slovenia, during what is expected to be his last official tour of Europe.

The "additional measures" will include "steps to ensure Iranian banks cannot... support proliferation and terrorism", said a joint statement.

Mr Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "incredibly dangerous" to peace.

So here it is: our banking system is collapsing and our oil situation is totally whacked and we want to wreck Iran's banks and oil pumping abilities. We will die if we don't stop. Stop! Please! Well, Ron Paul is running his own convention when the Republicans crown McCain and Bob Barr is running on a third party ticket. We have a choice. Might as well vote for one of them if there are NO antiwar candidates!

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Obama Joins AIPAC Zionists For WWIII

6/6/2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Oil shoots up right after Obama declares fealty first and foremost to Israel's Jews. Thanks, buddy. Now we have all wars, all the time running for President, Israel today announced they will definitely attack Iran! This is a very dangerous situation. Even if there is no attack, this talk has slammed into the US underbelly like a Nazi torpedo slamming into a Lend Lease ship. I wonder if Americans will ever put 2X2 together to see how wars=high oil prices. Even if the media which is extremely Zionist, refuses to mention this dire duality. But no one can escape the reality of wars=high oil prices! Unless you are walking all the time and don't use any oil or gas to heat or cool your house via electricity or fossil fuel systems. Time to buy solar energy panels!

Stocks, Dollar Fall, Bonds Rise as U.S. Jobless Rate, Oil Surge

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell the most in 15 months, the dollar slid to a one-week low and Treasuries rallied after unemployment and fuel prices surged, heightening speculation the U.S. faces a protracted recession.

U.S. equities declined, led by a 395-point drop in the Dow, as crude jumped more than $10 a barrel. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index decreased 3.1, the steepest sell-off in three months, and Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 slid 2 percent to the lowest since April 15.

The dollar lost 0.9 percent against a basket of six currencies including the euro, against which it weakened 1.1 percent to $1.5775, as investors pared bets the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury securities and European government bonds declined as the price of fixed-rate investments climbed.

Well! After being warned to not drive up commodity prices, the politicians then rush over to AIPAC to join in a Seig Heilathon yell fest demanding WWIII. People sensibly hoard oil, food, gold and build up cave hiding holes whenever the political classes openly talk about starting major wars. Especially when talking about bombing the world's #2 oil reserves!

Iran is not Iraq. Iran is a democracy. Perhaps more so than the US. Here, we see in polls that only 9% of Americans support war with Iran! Yet all our politicians rush off to AIPAC to promise war with Iran! So, are we a democracy or are we in a vast conspiracy to deny us even the slightest say in our own national affairs? Both the ethnic cleansing Übermenschen Jews in Israel and the 'We are #1' American fanatics claim to be democracies even as both deny their own citizens or captive populations even the slightest say in how affairs are arranged. The dire poll clearly showing American citizens...INCLUDING MANY JEWS IN AMERICA...want the US to negotiate with Iran, not attack Iran....AIPAC and our 'leaders' talk only about crushing Iran, not negotiating at all.

Obama knows that he has zero chance of entering the White House if he doesn't obey the owners of the US media who are nearly all Zionists or if not, then Jewish Americans who dare not say a peep about Zionist right wing fascists controlling our entire foreign policies. But the average American, already reeling from the amazing war tax on energy, if it climbs another 50% this summer so gasoline is going for over $6 a gallon---even if the Jewish owners of most of our media remain silent about this as they jerk Obama around on a short leash, certainly Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, will be very loud about all this.

All my life, since I was Mrs. Levy, I begged the Jewish community here in America to not support this toxic form of Zionism. Silencing talk about cause and effect will only cause people, once even trusting people who believe in the media, if they figure out they are being misled and lied to by the media in order to allow Israel to attack our oil suppliers, the obvious connection between our last three huge oil spikes/economic collapses were ALL caused by various wars. Some of which were Muslim sect versus Muslim sect like the Iran/Iraq war, for example. Let's go back in time to last year where Obama tried to sweet talk with AIPAC and convince him he would negotiate in such a way, Israel's interests would be considered be mere American interest:

Obama's speech to AIPAC in 2007: In AIPAC speech, Obama repeats support for Israel, peace talks

In what may have been a veiled reference to reports of American opposition to Israeli negotations with Syria, Obama said: "We should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States."

The Illinois senator also called for continued American military assistance to Israel. "We must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs," he said.

Obama added that he was concerned about the Palestinian unity government accord.

Turning to Iran, the presidential hopeful called for direct engagement with the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.

"We need the United States to lead tough-minded diplomacy," he said. "This includes direct engagement with Iran similar to the meetings we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War."

"Tough-minded diplomacy would include real leverage through stronger sanctions," Obama continued. "It would mean more determined U.S diplomacy at the United Nations. It would mean a cooperative strategy with Gulf States who supply Iran with much of the energy resources it needs. It would mean full implementation of U.S. sanctions laws."

Obama blamed what he called the Administration's failed strategy in Iraq for strengthening the Iranian position, placing "Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril."

Both Hillary and McCain were not so mamby pamby as to suggest any negotiations at all, just threats of annihilation. So Obama struggled hard to gain an advantage against Hillary. Even after she suggested that 'hard working white voters' could not vote for him and the media did not shame her from the race when it became racist, she could then talk about the possibility of assassination hitting Obama as well as openly lie about vote counting, her promises, and nearly anything she wished. If Obama struck back the media howled at him for attacking that fine white woman, Miz Hillary.

Despite all this, he barely won. I will note that he lost most of the races after Hillary talked about obliterating Iran. Suddenly, he was the bad guy and she was the innocent Southern Belle. When he did finally win, many top Democrats still refused to endorse him until he crawled to AIPAC and begged them for support. 'Sing, Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' they ordered. He hopped up and down and pumped his arms and waved his Kali Skull Necklace. Hillary then said she would support him. 'You are now one of us: a bloody war criminal,' she crowed. Bush wiped his forehead. 'Now I can sleep in peace and not worry about being arrested,' he gloated.

Obama's AIPAC speech shocks Arabs

Palestinian and Arab hopes were dashed by a speech that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama gave to a pro-Israeli lobby, in which he promised his full support to Israel and went further by adopting Israeli policy that sees Jerusalem as the "undivided capital" of the Jewish state.
After having discreetly vouched for Obama since the party race to the White House began last year, his speech – just hours after he won his party's backing on Wednesday – has prompted second thoughts about what changes the African-American could bring to Washington's Middle East foreign policy.
*snip*
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said his group, "does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict are the same and are hostile to us…. Obama's comments have confirmed there will be no change in the U.S. administration's policy."

Arab commentators also blasted what they called Obama's "appeasement" speech, saying while the Jewish votes and the pro-Israeli lobby's strength were important in U.S. elections, his remarks on the Middle East conflict were not very different from U.S. President George W. Bush's policies, and risks harming U.S. relations with dozens of Muslim countries.

"This cheap way of throwing himself at the feet of this lobby harms American interests … and encourages violence and terrorism by giving justification to extremist groups, such as al-Qaida," said Al-Quds al-Arabi's editorial Thursday, which added that foreign policy was for the first time an important element in U.S. elections.

"Obama is gambling with his image and the widespread hopes that many had placed on him to change the face of America, its relations with the world, and getting out of its economic crises stemming from its failed and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," the pan-Arab independent Palestinian-owned daily wrote.

Also this week the Democrats, hyped to the hilt by their love fest with the Real Rulers in Jerusalem, all began to demand more boycotts, more restrictions and more crushing isolation for Iran. This means no one should buy their OIL. And on top of this, right after Bush went on a weasel crawl to the Saudi Royals for oil, the AIPAC creatures in Congress voted nearly unanimously to cut weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. Who will now go to China and Russia for these things. Five days ago, the King of SA offered to boost oil pumping by 300,000 barrels. Guess what?

He ain't gonna do it. Nor should he. If we insist on slapping him in the face every time he tries to help us out of our own foolish pits, he will eventually start dumping dirt on top of us instead. We think today's oil hike was big?

HAR. Wait until he turns the taps off even more firmly. $200 a barrel oil is not in the far future.

Israel to attack Iran unless enrichment stops-minister

An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks "unavoidable" given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies said on Friday."If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

"Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," said the former army chief who has also been defence minister.

It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert's government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end.

And here it is today! Israel is definitely going to attack Iran. The negotiations over the secret treaty with the puppet government of Bagdad is probably all about getting some method for allowing Israeli jets to fly over Iraq to attack Iran. The US will definitely escort the Israelis or turn off the radars when Israel begins to fly. The problem here is, what if the Chinese, smoldering in fury over the Tibet coup attempt, might let Iran know what THEIR own satellites pick up. Then there is Russia: we parked missiles in Poland facing the Kremlin. Russia warned us to not do this. Russia has excellent satellites as well as a gigantic nuclear arsenal. Hell, so does China.

WWIII can happen in a flash. This is why the US should avoid setting up things that will cause this. This means kicking AIPAC out of DC.

Below are a bunch of charts showing that up until the war talk against Iran, there were NO OIL SHORTAGES.

Brent Spot monthly.svg

Mexico Crude Oil Production by Year

Iran, Islamic Republic Of Crude Oil Production by Year

Saudi Arabia Crude Oil Production by Year

Iran oil production chart from Mises Institute:

U.S. Department of Energy -

The United States in 2002 was responsible for 2% of world crude oil reserves, 9% of petroleum production, and 25% of petroleum consumption. The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations have 80% of the world crude oil reserves and 41% of world petroleum production.

Wikipedia:

Household net worth drops by $1.7 trillion

Americans saw their net worth decline by $1.7 trillion in the first quarter, as declines in home values and the stock market ravaged their holdings.
The net worth of U.S. households fell 3% to $56 trillion at the end of March, according to the Federal Reserve's flow of funds report, which was released Thursday.

The drop marks the second straight decline in net worth, which fell by more than $500 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Until then, net worth had risen steadily since 2003, climbing nearly 31% over those five years. During the bear market of 2000 through 2002, household's net worth dropped 6.2%

During the last 50 years, economists have strained an entire swamp's gnat population through their teeth trying to convince each other and us that oil wars have nothing to do with our several banking collapses/loss of wealth/gross inflation cycles. This was pure hogwash. This round shows clearly how oil prices and wars both precede the raging inflation and the collapse of equity values! The coming price hikes associated with the talk about war with Iran should wipe out all doubt, the connection between war talk and oil prices is absolute and terrifyingly swift.

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The Oil Wars Still Rage

June 6, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Ever since the government threatened the hedge funds, the price of oil has dropped a tiny bit but has stabilized at between $123-125 per barrel. Indeed, the oil markets seem as quiet as Wall Street on Sunday. Gold has bounced around within severe limits, too. Between $800 and 900 an ounce. In the news: more scandals in the mystical magical carbon markets. Obviously a total fraud. The hell hounds of Carlyle are carving out gas storage places so they can play a ruthless gas market in coming winters of shortages. And George Will is angry about the US not pumping out ALL our future oil NOW for our darling SUV fleet.

The great carbon bazaar

Evidence of serious flaws in the multi-billion dollar global market for carbon credits has been uncovered by a BBC World Service investigation.

The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have been realised without external funding.

Right on the heels of my own story about how the carbon trading business was a total scam, comes this article detailing the latest scams. First of all, there is no such thing as 'trading' carbon. Either one makes carbon or one doesn't. Giving someone money so a business or country can merrily pollute fixes absolutely nothing at all. The polluters are basically bribing the nonpolluters. The pollution should simply stop. But the polluters make money doing this. The Japanese, for example, bribe small countries into voting for Japan's whale slaughters, for example. The rules are set up to protect whales. But the commission that does this is corrupted by the Japanese funds so the whales are not protected.

Developing nations should be allowed to pollute. This is part of the process of industrialization. A country can't jump from the 17th century to the 21st century in one leap. If the US or Europe or Japan, the G7, refuse to jump into the 21st century, why should China or Somalia? Giving money and technology to third world nations is fine. But giving them money and then forcing them to be clean while the G7 continue to pollute and not do the right thing? That is odious.

For example, the US should have about one million more wind mills than at present. There is NOTHING to stop this. Nothing at all. Every house built in the last 20 years should have had solar panels on the roofs. I and others up here in the Northeast have solar panels and they work, even in winter, even on cloudy days. Only snow storms stop them from working. The entire south and west should have these on every roof long ago. As we put in granite sinks and swimming pools, no one was being forced to spend a penny on clean or renewable energy systems. Far from it.

So demanding third world nations do what we adamantly refuse to do is pure evil.

Arguably, this defeats the whole point of the CDM scheme, set up under the Kyoto climate change protocol, as these projects are getting money for nothing.

The findings reinforce doubts that the CDM is leading to real emission cuts, which is not good news for the effort to combat climate change.

And in one case a company is earning truly staggering sums of money from the carbon credits it is receiving - perhaps as much as $500m (£250m) over a period of 10 years - for a project it says it would have carried out without the incentive of the CDM.

There are so many things wrong with this concept! Most of the work needed to be done in the G7 nations can be done via the simple method of the government MANDATING it! Giving tax breaks or stipends or government loans coupled with laws that force people to do the right thing: this worked in the past and will in the future.

The US has to do this for the simple reason, not the pollution problems, but because we import far too much energy and can't afford to keep doing this. It is leading us into bankruptcy! It would be patriotic to set up renewable systems. We can't depend on one or three people to do the sensible thing. We have to enforce building codes on new houses that feature these systems as a matter of course. A $20,000 energy system on a $400,000 house is not very expensive. The electrical requirements can be set as a percentage of the value of the house. So a $100,000 house only has to have an $8,000 system, for example. Which is the cost of a bathroom, for example. So many houses have far more bathrooms than houses just 30 years ago when two baths were rare.

The Gas Prices We Deserve by George Will the Witless:

Rising in the Senate on May 13, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, explained: "I rise to discuss rising energy prices." The president was heading to Saudi Arabia to seek an increase in its oil production, and Schumer's gorge was rising.

Saudi Arabia, he said, "holds the key to reducing gasoline prices at home in the short term." Therefore arms sales to that kingdom should be blocked unless it "increases its oil production by one million barrels per day," which would cause the price of gasoline to fall "50 cents a gallon almost immediately."
*snip*
One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Bill Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there. One million barrels produce 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Seventy-two of today's senators -- including Schumer, of course, and 38 other Democrats, including Barack Obama, and 33 Republicans, including John McCain -- have voted to keep ANWR's estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil off the market.

So Schumer, according to Schumer, is complicit in taking $10 away from every American who buys 20 gallons of gasoline. "Democracy," said H.L. Mencken, "is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." The common people of New York want Schumer to be their senator, so they should pipe down about gasoline prices, which are a predictable consequence of their political choice.

Everyone at the top is crazy right now. Schumer isn't hammering on Saudi Arabia over the oil. He represents Israel, not New York. Or rather, a significant and powerful block of rich people in New York who support Israel very strongly. They want to stop these weapons and are riding on the oil issue as cover. The ANWAR business is amusing in a horrible way. Eventually, we will suck up the oil there. But holding off is actually a good thing. This is because we waste most of the oil we use right now. We have a bottomless appetite for oil. The last thing we need is more oil.

Why? Well! I went to the hospital today as we must regularly. And instead of a parking lot filled with heaving behemoths, all but three of the cars were small. Nearly all of the SUVs were gone! I really hated the SUV mania. Those things were dangerous. They block the view in traffic. They roll over. The drivers tend to be rather careless because they are 'big'. I feel a lot safer, driving around in this new, reduced sized universe. If we pump all the oil in America in the next 20 years in a frenzied attempt to keep this nasty fleet of huge machines rolling, leaving nothing for our grandchildren, this is a crime and a curse.

George Will, like many neo cons, can't think ahead by 20 years or even 2 years. He wants everything now and the devil take the hindmost. If we reduce our oil consumption, we will be better off, not worse off. Oil is not infinite nor eternal. It is a very limited resource that is dangerous to overuse. The pollution is bad for living things. We must control our desire to pump all of it out and consume it on the spot.

Fishermen clash with police at EU

French fishermen have been on strike for several weeks over the price of diesel, which has risen by 240% in the past five years.

In recent days they have been joined by members of fleets from the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy, who have blockaded ports across Europe, and truck drivers.

Due to speculators and a shortage of diesel which is used for local and international shipping, the price of diesel has shot far above gasoline. I use diesel a lot. This is terrifying. I now have to carefully consider taking the truck out on jobs. The tractor is very efficient but it uses diesel, too. Farmers around me are complaining about the cost of plowing, haying and harvesting.

The fishermen besieged the European Parliament and attacked it, setting things on fire, smashing windows, overturning cars. The police battled them and they were shoved out. But they are angry and will strike out again. Probably at various ports. Unlike in America, the Europeans tend to lunge for the throat of their ruling elites. History is clear about this: unhappy 'peasants' are very dangerous. Heads can and will roll. In the US last month, unhappy truckers drove around DC and waved signs and honked horns then went home to die. When they demonstrated, diesel was at $3.80 up here. Afterwards, it shot up to $5.15. The demonstration was utterly useless. If Congress is in session and the President at home and 20,000 angry truckers showed up waving torches and pitchforks and try to smash through the cement barriers and iron fences surrounding the rich Senators and administrators, you can bet, this will wake up even the dreamers in the heart of our empire.

Centaurus, Carlyle Carve Gas Caverns as Traders Bet Prices Rise

John Arnold turned $8 million into $1.5 billion in the past six years by betting on natural-gas prices. Now the former Enron Corp. trader is seeking his next fortune under a Colorado cow pasture.

Arnold's Centaurus Advisors hedge fund and the Carlyle Group buyout firm are digging natural-gas storage caverns 2,500 feet (760 meters) under scrub grass on Rocky Mountain ranches and cypress trees in Louisiana swamps.

Storage demand is surging as new pipelines and import terminals expand supplies of natural gas, this year's second best-performing commodity after coal. Speculators buy and store the fuel when costs are low and sell as prices rise during cold snaps or heat waves in major U.S. cities.

The off shore hell hounds and the ruling elite investment schemers are hard at work preparing to ream us all out when they corner the energy markets. Carlyle is owned by people like the Bush clan who run the US out of the White House, for example. The board of directors can see in to the future because they are our rulers! And of course, they know how we will all be forced to pay them DOUBLE and QUADRUPLE what we are paying now!

Obama is probably going to be our next President. He just went off to AIPAC to bow to the Jewish Lobby which was very steamed Hillary wasn't getting the nod. To gain their support, he promised more wars in the Middle East. He promised to continue the Apocalypse. He promised to do everything in his power to make oil much more expensive. This is because wars on behalf of Israel=higher energy prices. Carlyle's board of directors is delighted with this. Just as all the money makers are overjoyed. More wars means more money in the military/industrial complex and the war daddies and war mommies in DC will be rolling in dough.

NO ONE is allowed to rule us unless they promise more war, more debts and more slavery. The reason the last 200 Democratic 'super delegates' refused to endorse Obama when he won the primary was because they needed him to go grovel to AIPAC and promise them nothing would change. They all fear AIPAC and worry that if they endorsed him too fast, he wouldn't be beholden to AIPAC's money kingmakers. He would continue all the stupid things that got us into this mess.

And the reason oil is expensive is due to too much easy lending coupled with stupid wars. 3 soldiers were blown up today in Iraq. The US is negotiating a secret treaty that keeps us stuck there forever. And we want to make the place a platform for future invasions and attacks and alarms. So we can pin down all of Israel's neighbors from behind while Israel finishes off the last of the Palestinians. And then we all drop dead because we are bankrupt and have far too little energy or capital to rebuild America, much less, save the world.

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