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International-UN-NGOs
Opec members seek emergency meeting
2008-10-09
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch ...
Almost half the members of the Opec oil cartel are considering an emergency meeting in Vienna next month as oil prices dropped to their lowest level in nearly a year. Almost half the members of cartel have in the past few days called on the group to act to halt the slide before their next official meeting scheduled to take place in Algeria in late December.
Since the slide could hit them where it really hurts, in the disposable income they have to buy off their countrymen and cause trouble around the world ...
Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Venezuela and Ecuador, whose economies tend to be most dependent on high oil prices and whose ministers are among the most hawkish of the 13-member group, have all lobbied for the cartel to drop output.

Their calls came as oil consuming nations moved to bolster their economies in a co-ordinated interest rate cut.

Oil prices on Wednesday resumed their slide towards $85 a barrel, a level last reached in December last year. Nymex November West Texas Intermediate fell $3.06 to $87 a barrel, while ICE November Brent slid $2.96 to $81.
I know there's been talk about putting a floor under oil prices by enacting an import tax. The idea is that we'd keep the pricing pressures in place to encourage alternative energy sources, and that might be true. But I wouldn't mind letting oil fall to $20 a barrel for a couple years if it meant we could stir up enough unrest to have the angry populations remove Chavez, the Mad Mullahs™ and the latest thug-du-jour in Nigeria.
Opec's next meeting was scheduled for December 18 in Algeria, but ministers are now saying they could meet on November 18 in Vienna, site of the group's headquarters. Opec controls nearly 40 per cent of the world's oil supply, and at its meeting last month pledged to reduce its production by about 500,000 barrels a day in an attempt to boost prices. So far the group's reduction has fallen far from that mark, but slowing production often takes more than a few weeks.

The world consumes about 87m barrels a day of oil.
Posted by:Steve White

#18  JDAM
Posted by: Hellfish   2008-10-09 21:18  

#17  And before you buy T. Boone's spiel, you ought to research him a tad. You'll find that he has a lot of vested interest in pushing natural gas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens
Posted by: Darrell   2008-10-09 21:01  

#16  Before all you CNG advocates get too excited, please be advised that we already have to import natural gas in liquified form (LNG) to satisfy demand -- and that's before you convert any more transportation. And it may take ten years to get Palin's pipeline across Canada given all the Native American lawsuits expected. The natural gas companies want you to use more natural gas because they smell profits in increased retail sales, and they don't give a damn whether it's imported or not. Furthermore, the pipelines to our houses may not be big enough to satisfy both our heating requirements and our transportation requirements in winter. And lastly, there's a lot of areas that those pipelines don't serve, so we'll need a huge fleet of LNG tanker trucks to move the natural gas around, especially outside most metropolitan areas. Good luck with that quick fix.
Posted by: Darrell   2008-10-09 20:54  

#15  #13. Is that you T. Boone?

I keed. I keed.
Posted by: Scott R   2008-10-09 17:07  

#14  Woozle Elmeter 2700: re comment #11. I realize that we are doing a lot on this. Good stuff. I am involved in the design of 6 or so bulk wood and cordwood fired central heating systems for rural communities and schools at this time.

What I mean in my comment 10 is that on the national scene, i.e., the President and congress, they just do not get it. I am glad that the states and other entities are doing something. We HAVE to do something, because fossil fuel prices are killing us. As far as Washington, DC goes, I do not care what happens to them, except for a few Rantburgers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2008-10-09 16:55  

#13  Compressed natural gas, or CNG, is plentiful, with trillions of cubic feet under Alaska alone, and is immediatel usuable technology. There is a lack of distribution centers, but vehicles are currently in use. Toyota makes one, but conversion kits are also available. They should be converting all those extra cars on the lot now. LNG is also being used by several school districts that have converted expensive diesel buses. We don't need them.
Posted by: Danielle   2008-10-09 13:42  

#12  Drill, drill, drill!
.
Posted by: OregonGuy   2008-10-09 13:35  

#11  Not quite AP. There's a bunch of good news in the backround. Scientists at universities and other public companies are really starting to sprint now on alternate fuel paths. Univ. of Wisconsin has made a discovery to strip alcohols of the oxygens using catalytic processes, resulting in a direct path to gasoline. This pathway has been known previously, but not practical. This may lead the way. They have already gone from a few beakers to a few hundred gallons. Promising. Elsewhere, both enzymes and other pathways using acids and high pressures are leading to easier, cheaper ethanol, and more importantly butanol, production from a wide variety of cellulose, not just corn. Corn was easy cause we been brewin' corn whiskey for a long, long time. Corn as the major base stock will begin to recede rapidly. And then we have electric vehicles. GM is rollin'. Battery life in hot environs is still a problem, but now they are adding insulation and cooling to make certain they can go in Las Vegas, Arizona and other desert hotspots. Ford, Toyota, Chrysler, and Renault are building electrics. BMW and VW are working advanced diesels. I don't care for them, but biodiesel is here too. As far as converting plants to fuel and consumiing food. F**k them. Let them starve. Starvation = too weak to cause trouble. These camel f**kers fortunes are going to change soon. We just have to hang on and get busy.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700   2008-10-09 11:44  

#10  We are really no better that the oil ticks, sort of. We need cash flow to keep afloat. Congress has been doing this for decades by spending like there is no tomorrow. Now it is coming to bite us in the a$$. The oil ticks do not have the depth of economy that we do, so their cash flow becomes critical sooner.

The sooner we get energy independence from these psychos, the better. However, the only ones on the national scene who get it are T. Boone Pickins and Sarah Palin.
Posted by: Alaska Paul    2008-10-09 11:20  

#9  I'd rather see it come from an outright tax than be borrowed from the Chinese in the form of more Treasury Bills and National Debt. But you're right, they would try to sink their greasy ham-fists into any money that was collected.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-10-09 11:19  

#8  Put a floor tax at $3/gal. and rebuild our rotten old bridges and roads.

Jim, you naive man. You know all that would be spent on pet "green" projects and bridges to nowhere. Meanwhile another bridge would collapse.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-10-09 10:40  

#7  They sure adjusted their economies to $100bbl. oil awful fast. Now they can't pay the bills on $80bbl oil? It only costs them about $5bbl to get it on a tanker. I'd like to see it plunge all the way down to $20bbl. too. Put a floor tax at $3/gal. and rebuild our rotten old bridges and roads.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-10-09 10:36  

#6  How stupid to cut production during a recession. OPEC has about as much understanding of economics as does our congress.
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2008-10-09 08:28  

#5  angry populations remove Chavez, the Mad Mullahs™ and the latest thug-du-jour in Nigeria

Biggest problem with this thinking is the same logical fallacy that affects Obama supporters - the assumption that 'change' is necessarily good. Even horrible circumstances can change for the worse.
Posted by: Glenmore   2008-10-09 08:00  

#4  Putting a price floor tax in place would in no way prevent oil prices from falling. In fact, it would lower them as it restrained the demand that normally results from falling prices. That's the point.

What we are really talking about is the division of the spread between the cost to raise and deliver oil and the price the oil will fetch. Right now we give all the spread to the producers. With a floor, when the price falls below a threshold, we keep a portion of the spread. That incents government to keep the price (and demand) for oil at a level where it maximizes revenue. Sort of like tobacco.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-10-09 07:09  

#3  ....OPEC has a real problem this go-round. The Saudis - without whom OPEC is no more than just another dictators' club - aren't pushing for a production cut. Secondly, OPEC has never been successful at keeping prices high when demand is low. Pass the popcorn.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2008-10-09 06:03  

#2  I remember telling them that that oil money was welfare. All of them.
They know they are to become self sufficient and support their populace. No one has time for them to take over the world. We prefer to eat.
Posted by: newc   2008-10-09 01:24  

#1  Holy cash flow, Batman!
Posted by: Alaska Paul    2008-10-09 01:23  

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