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Matt Simmons Has Died Of A Heart Attack
CNBC notes the apparent cause of death of the recently popular BP skeptic, and founder of oil company Simmons & Co., was a heart attack. A conflicting report according to WLBZ cites the source of death as drowning.
NORTH HAVEN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) - The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.
Simmons was a leading investment banker for the energy industry and had recently retired to work full time on the new Ocean Energy Institute.
He was a leading proponent of offshore wind power and had started raising money to develop and build offshore turbines.
He and his family had also bought and rebuilt the Old Strand Theater in downtown Rockland.
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Matt came across as genuine and undoubtedly chose the the harder path in life which seems a rarity nowadays. He helped change the way I look at oil and the future - and the man had balls. I'm sorry to learn of his death.
He didn't buy calls.
Natural gas ETF getting obliterated on world record volume.
So much for that "Peak Oil" myth.
We are swimming in it.
still above the May lows, is this a screaming buy signal?
natural gas and oil are not synonymous.
the former trades as a commodity (remember supply and demand) and the latter as an asset class and increasingly as a hedge again the declining USD.
peak oil was a theory that should have been termed "peak cheap oil".
RIP Matt Simmons. He died in a hot tub, hopefully not alone.
Lizzy, I have missed you and echo your sentiments regarding the difference between NG and oil.
I used to work with Matt and he was a true pioneer esp in the oilfield service sector. A champion of full disclosure and transparency which is so rare in the energy industry.
His research ability was world class and his passion for the industry was unmatched.
He truly will be missed. I believe Matt had 5 daughters and was a great family man.
RIP - Matt
The argument is that if oil is running out now then natural gas should go up in value.
Oil will run out, and sooner than expected. There's only so much in the ground and people tend to be wasteful. "Peak Oil" occurs when the point of maximum oil production has been reached, after which production levels drop. Robo is right that we haven't hit peak oil yet, but he's wrong to think that oil will be around forever. "Peak Oil" isn't a myth, it's only a question of when it will occur.
I call it Peak-A-Boo oil, because some countries are hiding reserves, rather than sell their commodity for worthless fiat paper, with hyperinflation just around the corner.
Gartman is on cnbc the other day. He says, "We have way more reserves than we used to. We had 30 odd million barrels a few years ago, now we have 60 odd." Great talking point, except for the fact that consumption is 80 million barrels, and production is barely over that. Oil spike and there goes your reserves in a matter of months. A war and that kiss is in a day. Then Mandy sqwaks, "Peak oil!" A sexy "MI5" agent she is!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38470762
"Peak Oil" isn't a myth, it's only a question of when it will occur."
Yeah--just like the end of the world...
Give me some facts about how peak oil is a myth.
For exponential credit creation to "work" it needs larger and larger capital extraction via oil,gas, coal etc, since the powers in charge live by fractionally reserving everything that remotely smells of capital they can only function in a world of increasing capital extraction ,not creation.
The stresses in this financial system presently is a symptom of peal oil and other commodities.
Nice summery!
in the 70's everyone said the same thing, now more than 30 years later oil is cheaper than it was then.
We might well run out of oil one day, but I doubt it will be in my lifetime.
And as the price finally goes up, alternatives will become economic.
Technology bitchez.
The response to the 1970s oil shock was to progressively run down capital and express this temporary event via profits and wages.
This was done via Volcker's high interest dollar policey which made investment in capital a losing proposition.
We still have power plants from the 50s 60s and to some extent the 70s that were capital intensive ,after not so much.
The only western country that defied this for some time was France using a expensive fiscal policey that showed huge losses during those monetarist years.
The Anglo western world no longer has capital to run down and play wall street games.
You need capital if you want to develop technology - its gone and its over.
two simple words for you
nuclear
coal
a few more words
canadian oil sands
more oil than saudi arabia, lots of jobs created to extract it. As oil price goes up lots of willing investors and capital.
ah yes, Canadian oil sands...here is a nice summary;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuLjGQQ-jg
Yes I agree - but these resources are much more capital intensive - yet the banks have run down their capital to absurd levels and extract profits and bonuses from these low capital ratios.
The banks will have to dramatically recapitalize so that sufficient funds can flow into these projects and the only mechanism that I can see that can achieve this is a dramatic reevaluation of Gold that will reduce the financial sectors ratio of revenue in society to very low levels.
They do not seem to want to give up the golden fleece so therefore more capital is run down to sustain their lifestyles - until this changes technologies like nuclear and other capital intensive projects such as high speed rail will be starved of capital and therefore growth.
Exactly, not only is it capital intensive to say the least, but tar sands also require incredible amounts of fresh water to process. Trading a resource we need to live for a resource we need to party seems pretty dumb. Nuclear is a better option, especially if we succeed at the National Ignition Facility, but that is now talking about serious capital.
Technology may solve some of these problems, but not if the elite keep fucking lying about it to further feather their nests.
Any doubts I had about you are erased now. Staggering lack of understanding. Or is it that you are pitching something a certain viewpoint perhaps? You're either a woefully uniformed mainstreamer with little ability to do independent research or a shill.
A wise man recently said "google is your friend".
my only friend, S A D.
Perhaps the lovely assassin killed him with the downstroke.
Robo, first, NG depletion is extremely hard to guage. Many times the well is depleted even before they could have guessed it would be. Also, we are using NG to get Tar Sands, which is using it in spades. Also, the NG supply in America is not as large as one would hope, and the only way to get it here is to liquify it. This is a very dangerous expenditure, as liquid NG is highly explosive. Also, NG's EROEI is lower than oil (as all EROEIs are) so it is not an adaquate replacement.
Amen, brah...
An excess of inventory does not correlate with the ease of producing the natural gas cheaply, it means a few different things, first: that natural gas is not being consumed as fast as before which makes sense given a downturn in the global economy, second: there are more companies drilling now than there were 3 years ago, but they aren't doing it cheaply, they are pouring hundreds of millions into drilling horizontal wells into shale formations, not a cheap enterprise, third: new reserves may be found that are fairly cheap to produce but very expensive to find, 3 dimensional geological studies are not cheap and neither are test wells, fourth: natural gas is not the same as oil, some reserves in the ground contain far more gas than oil, others more oil than gas, the theory Simmons proposed is peak cheap OIL.
+1
geological studies aren't cheap and perpetual wars are a financial nightmare
Conspiracy would not be my first thought but for the fact he was being critical of BP. God knows they have been involved in some slimey stuff (Current corexit usage, freeing of Lockerbie bomber, etc) Hope it was natural causes and as was pointed out he never looked like the picture of health.
What about that Fannie Mae CFO?
http://247wallst.com/2009/04/22/cfo-death-only-clouds-freddie-mac-fannie...
Man, that guy was just sad because he couldn't better assist the less fortunate in realizing their dream of owning a home (or at least 30 years worth of monthly payments on that home).
Mr. Simmons was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Simmons
Nevertheless, my condolences to his family and friends.
There will be Blood.
"I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need."
Shades of Karen Silkwood murder and Kerr-McGee nuclear cover up. I don't think that the story of Matt Simmons and BP is going to disappear. Silkwood's murder was the beginning of the end of nuclear energy in US, BP cover up is the beginning of the end of drilling in the GOM.
I was just pondering Simmon's predicament over the weekend, having read his Twilight in the Desert book a while back and was impressed with his apparent expertise and breadth of knowledge of the industry. He seemed a pretty straight shooter and not a nut job. But his public pronouncements over this BP GOM debacle did sound over the edge, which clashed with my perception of him. I was thinking as I was hearing about the well being closed, that jeez, Simmons was really proved to be wrong about this one.
Time will tell. If it is later determined that he was right, you'll know he was off'd.
did it happen this way? please watch first 4 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcKR5X5cz7g
I'm as prone to "tinfoil caps" as anyone else around here, but in this situation, I really believe the stress just killed the guy.
It has been said he was heavily short BP & RIG, so in the last 5 weeks, he has been decimated.....
JMHO.
The man was NOT heavily short. He was saying from the very beginning, and he repeated it every time he was asked, that he was short 4000 +- shares. He was worth several millions of dollars and 4000 shares short of BP is pocket change. And who knows if he covered or not. He wasn't decimated in the least by his short of BP.
Not to mention, without knowing at what point he purchased the short contracts, he could have been holding a good trade. Or, like you said, may have already covered. I think it's absurd to think this man killed himself over a short position.
I agree with CD that he was probably NOT heavily short - no proof but this is someone who worked in business for years - he would not put everything on shorting BP.
For all of those who are denying even the possibility of some type of "intervention" - remember David Kelly - around 7 years ago?
They were going to seal the records for 70 years because .... I don't know:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245599/David-Kelly-post-mortem-kept-secret-70-years-doctors-accuse-Lord-Hutton-concealing-vital-information.html
Now the inquiry's findings are being questioned once again:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301210/Detective-Dr-David-Kellys-body-raises-questions-death.html
The daily mail isn't my first source of news but it looks like they are the only ones keeping on top this story (and it isn't getting any play in the U.S. media)
I agree that yeah the guy didn't look that healthy - I would guess too much meat, potatoes and scotch (and I can sympathize) but I'm sure he would have had an excellent health care plan and if there was any risk involved in him swimming or being in hot tub he would have known it.
All that being said, I'm holding back making any judgements. It could be that he passed from natural causes. However, I'm not ruling anything else out - we don't know.
And finally I agree with some posters here. The fact that we are all so quick to assume nefarious elements were involved speaks volumes about how badly broken the the social compact is between the hoi polloi and our putative leaders.
Hmmm... very unusual turn of events. I do remember thinking that he was going up against some very powerful people. He may have been wrong, but was certainly courageous and he definitely seemed to believe the story he was telling. Well, RIP and hopefully the well has truly been capped.
The sheople are completely clueless..first it is reported as a drowning...then a heart attack...how similar to the Freddie Mac David Kellerman so called suicide..or the Washington Madame suicide....Kellerman was first reported shot to death...then it was changed to a hanging....the PTB do not need to cover it up..they have thoughtless morons who are so scared of individual thought ..that they do it for them..reminds me of the Oklahoma Bombibg as well first the local media reported it as multiple blasts..then when it hit mainstream media..it was one blast...read the article on Kellerman yourself...and watch the video from the Oklahoma bombing and use the brain that God gave you..not the manipulated one MSM has labotomized you with...here is Oklahoma bombing clip...below you will find the Kellerman article.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwrEEP8EBk
April 22, 2009 Top Freddie Mac executive David Kellermann dead in suspected suicideChristine Seib in New York div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited { color:#06c; }
The chief financial officer (CFO) of Freddie Mac is dead in an apparent suicide, as the giant US mortgage lender and guarantor is investigated over its accounting and disclosure methods.
David Kellermann is thought to have found at their surburban Washington home by his wife, who told local media that he committed suicide.
Police said only that the death was under "active investigation".
Mr Kellermann was appointed acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac when the lender was taken into US Government control last September. The 41-year-old had spent 16 years at the company, previously working as its corporate controller and principal accounting officer.
He was responsible for the company's financial controls, reporting and compliance with regulations governing audits and corporate governance.
Freddie Mac revealed last month said that it was being investigated by the US Attorney’s Office in Virginia and had been subpoenaed for documents related to accounting, disclosure and corporate governance back to September last year.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is also conducting an investigation, with which Freddie Mac said it was co-operating.
The SEC has interviewed Freddie Mac staff but Mr Kellermann’s name has not been connected publicly with either investigation.
John Koskinen, Freddie Mac’s interim chief executive, yesterday described the CFO as a "man of great talents", with an extraordinary work ethic, integrity and quick wit. "We mourn his passing," he said.
Mr Kellermann last month received a controversial $850,000 retention bonus – one of 92 payments made by Freddie Mac of $100,000 or more to senior staff in return for staying with the lender while it dug its way out of financial trouble.
The difficulty of the roles of senior executives at the lenders was underscored in March when David Moffett, Freddie Mac's Government-appointed chief executive, resigned after just five months in the job in order to return to the private sector
But the retention payments riled lawmakers who were already furious over a $165 million bonus handout at AIG, the insurer that owes taxpayers $80 billion. Congressmen pointed to the $108 billion loss made by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae last year.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lend or guarantee half of America's $12 trillion mortgage market but were taken into Government control last September after running up the huge loss on bad mortgages. The Government has set aside $200 billion to prop up the lenders.
A spokesman for Freddie Mac said that the lender "knows of no connection between this personal tragedy and the ongoing regulatory inquiries".
It never made sense to me that a CFR member would try to take on BP.
And I believe this guy really meant what he said. So all I can deduce is that after spending all his life as an insider, and now realizing that the future you contributed to for your grand-kids is truly "a jackboot on the face of humanity", you decide to throw caution to the wind and oppose the squid entities.
If he was suicided, he would be the least one in the world to be surprised.
Why is it people believe only Russians get involved in nefarious deeds?
I can think of plenty of reasons why no one should ever give our power elite the benefit of the doubt.
RIP Matt. I also enjoyed your insight.
Bless him and may the golden gates of heaven open to welcome his soul into God's loving arms.
Books
Matt Simmons: Twilight in the GOM
R.I.P.
Found this one out there in the ether. http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m8d6-Breaking-Gulf-news-LandSurveyor-proves-Simmons-right-TV-well-sham
I am interested to hear a more qualified opinion on this article.
duplicate post
The word Macondo, as in the Macondo well at the BP oil disaster, in Haitian means "the Devil's food".
Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current Dying
Loop Current in Gulf of Mexico Already Dead
Extreme heat/drought in Russia, Flooding in Asia,
Killing Cold in South America
All Connected To BP Oil Disaster
http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2010/08/special-post.html
...
You do not need to be paranoid or suspicious, it happens. It is hard to survive as you oppose someone, who is a member of Bilderberg. It is not new, it will happen again.
Even writing on this site has got some risk, do not think your identity is hidden, as all traffic what goes over usa territory is controlled. It is simply not allowed to have a security on the web, what cannot be broken by USA government.
I have defended myself in the past enough to know how difficult it is, to stay in front of the searchers. As you go public like MS, no matter who you are, you meet some walls.
i hope he rest in peace
I'm shorting BP.
Just to stir the consipiracy pot a bit more:
CIA has a heart attack gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzIw44w00ow
I feel sorry for his family.
Was genuinely shocked to hear he was gone. As for the rest, guess we'll find out as time lurches on...
Very suspicious timing. If there was shenanigans it would have been to cover something that isn't quite out in the public yet.
One thing that is very suspicious to me is that BP's MMS application described TWO wells to be drilled several hundred feet apart. Well "A" to be completed by 7/24 last year 2009 and Well "B" to be completed 7/24/2010. I have not heard this in the MSM reporting at all. A few videos online out about a surveyor looking at the BP MMS application(evidently it is published online at the MMS site) and noticed the coordinates of the unmanned subs on the live feed coincided with the first well and NOT the second? There are reports that BP had problems with the first well and that the Admin knew about it, that is why they rushed to get the second well in (reports of ignoring safety procedures) to get a relief well in when they ran into bigger problems.
I think this is just starting to bubble up on fringe sources but not yet mainstream. Who knew or who reported that there are in fact TWO wells? and that the unmanned roving subs may be parked at one and not the other?
I would like to get the truth and the timeline accounting for the TWO wells. I have not heard anything in the MSM even referring to two wells.
here is a link with 4 videos on the bottom of a surveyor showing the BP MMS application for TWO exploratory wells and questioning the coordinates of the rover being at which well?
Remember, it's more important to focus on what politicians and those on the hot seat DON'T say rather than what they DO say. They have the sleight of hand tricks down pat.
http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m8d6-Breaking...
10 lashes with Occam's Razorstrap. Um, where's the oil from the "second" well?
It s obviouse he was bumped off by tptb.
more interesting is ,was he right about the other leak????
Time will tell.
He really seemed to believe his own stuff. Wow, if the leak has really been capped, then this goes down as one of the stranger stories I've seen. Probably never know the full skinny.
I've been I've been sweating on a comment from Matt about the Macondo situation for a week and he turns up drowned in his hot tub. Suspicious? Of course! My second thought was, I bet conspiracy theories are all over the web, my third thought was I bet they remain theories because nobody believes in conspiracy theories even when the world runs on conspiracy even more than it runs on oil.
If I am Matt, I consider the possibility I could die before all the information gets out (could be I am not healthy, could be I am getting death threats, could be I am a paranoid old coot). I find more than one source. I leave them my materials and ask them to carry through with getting the information out there.
We shall see what happens next.
you really should stop watching bad movies and get out more
We shall see. If he was a lying sack of hysterical shit, that should come out too. There is a beauty to it.
VWbuggy, I am open to it that he was or was not offed. I am open to it that oil may be running out, or not. I am open to it that other fossil fuels may or may not fill the gap. Based on your posting habits, I am not open to the idea that you consider all possibilities. You sell one side, consistently. Other fossil fuels will fill the gap. We are all nuts for considering the possibility that someone wanted Matt dead. The oil spill is not a big deal. I don't trust you. If you were a shill, I can forgive that, gotta do what cha gotta do to eat I guess. If you are not a shill, you scare the fuck out of me.
well you sure scare easily
I trade stocks and commodities for fun, and on any given day I might be long or short anything.
Sure ways to lose money trading are to get emotional, dogmatic, irrational or scared.
I am one way for sure, the way of reasoned, rational consistent thinking, which is the opposite of most (all?) conspiracy theorists.
Right now I am 85% short stocks, just today covered 15% of my position. My long term view is that stocks will crash, MAYBE testing lows of march, but I doubt it. I'll go long before we reach those levels.
I'd like to see someone here explain to me how oil, commodities and gold will rise in a scenario of total economic collapse.
Doubt I will get that, but it is still entertaining and useful for me to read opinions here, as it goes a long way to tempering my bearish inclinations, guess that's the contrarian in me.
p.s. wanna know what scares me? The knowledge that there are so many irrational, scared, depressed people out there praying for disaster to happen to drag the rest of the world down to their level.
it must be tough being smarter and healthier than everyone else.
not everyone, just the very few tin foil hat types
p.p.s.
I don't think Simmons was, as you put it, a lying stack of hysterical shit, that's pretty disrespectful.
I just think he was irrational and possibly suffering some kind of mental illness, which can happen to anyone.
I don't have any problem at all with the man, just his bad ideas and fear mongering.
I don't really remember where I first came across one of your articles regarding peak oil (probably around 9 or 10 years ago) but that article did make me sit up and take notice. And I sought out a few articles after that. And it made me start looking at the data (math!) on my own. Thank you so much.
R.I.P. Mr. Simmons
Solong Matt, You most impressed me. You'll be long lost but not forgotten. Fairwell my friend. /TK
Solong Matt, You most impressed me. You be long lost but not forgotten. Fairwell my friend. /TK
I am the cult of personality.
Simmons was dead wrong on the whole Gulf fiasco, from claiming that the only way to stop the flow was to nuke the well to his assertion that this thing could flow at current levels for 20-30 years. He has been proven wrong, without a doubt. There was no reason to terminate him. Durden, please bring back the old hedge, the one that had some value. Your site is on the verge of becoming as laughable as Denninger's.