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Something Very Strange Is Taking Place Off The Coast Of Galveston, TX
Having exposed the world yesterday to the 2-mile long line of tankers-full'o'crude heading from Iraq to the US, several weeks after reporting that China has run out of oil storage space we can now confirm that the global crude "in transit" glut is becoming gargantuan and is starting to have adverse consequences on the price of oil.
While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land). The storage problems are so severe in fact, that traders asking ships to go slow, and that is where we see something very strange occurring off the coast near Galveston, TX.
FT reports that "the amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources."
The storage glut is unprecedented:
Off Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Asia’s main oil hub, around 35m barrels of crude and shipping fuel are being stored on 14 VLCCs.“A lot of the storage off Singapore is fuel oil as the contango is stronger,” said Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob. Fuel oil is mainly used in shipping and power generation.Off China, which is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest crude importer, five heavily laden VLCCs — each capable of carrying more than 2m barrels of oil — are parked near the ports of Qingdao, Dalian and Tianjin.In Europe, a number of smaller tankers are facing short-term delays at Rotterdam and in the North Sea, where output is near a two-year high. In the Mediterranean a VLCC has been parked off Malta since September.On the US Gulf Coast, tankers carrying around 20m barrels of oil are waiting to unload, Reuters reported. Crude inventories on the US Gulf Coast are at record levels.A further 8m barrels of oil are being held off the UAE, while Iran — awaiting the end of sanctions to ramp up exports — has almost 40m barrels of fuel on its fleet of supertankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Much of this is believed to be condensate, a type of ultralight oil.
And unlike the last oil price collapse during the financial crisis only half of the oil held on the water has been put there specifically by traders looking to cash in by storing the fuel until prices recover. Instead, sky-high supertanker rates have prevented them from putting more oil into so-called floating storage, shutting off one of the safety valves that could prevent oil prices from falling further.
A widening oil market structure known as contango — where future prices are higher than spot prices — could make floating storage possible.The difference between Brent for delivery in six months’ time and now rose to $4.50 last week, up from $1.50 in May. Traders estimate it may need to reach $6 to make sea storage viable.
JBC Energy, a consultancy, said in many regions onshore oil storage is approaching capacity, arguing oil prices may have to fall to allow more to be stored profitably at sea.
“Onshore storage is not quite full but it is at historically high levels globally,” said David Wech, managing director of JBC Energy.“As we move closer to capacity that is creating more infrastructure hiccups and delays in the oil market, leading to more oil being backed out on to the water.”Patrick Rodgers, the chief executive of Euronav, one of the world’s biggest listed tanker companies, said oil glut was so severe traders were asking ships to go slow to help them manage storage levels.“We are being kept at relatively low speeds. The owners of the oil are not in a hurry to get their cargoes. They are managing their storage capacity by keeping ships at a certain speed.”
As a result of all this, something very unusual going on off the coast of Galveston, where more than 39 crude tankers w/ combined cargo capacity of 28.4 million bbls wait near Galveston (Galveston is area where tankers can anchor before taking cargoes to refineries at Houston and other nearby plants), vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show, which compares w/ 30 vessels, 21 million bbls of capacity in May. Vessels wait avg of 5 days, compared w/ 3 days May.
As AP puts it, "a traffic jam of oil tankers is the latest sign of an unyielding global supply glut."
More than 50 commercial vessels were anchored outside ports in the Houston area at the end of last week, of which 41 were tankers, according to Houston Pilots, an organization that assists in navigation of larger vessels. Normally, there are 30 to 40 vessels, of which two-thirds are tankers, according to the group.Although the channel has been shut intermittently in recent weeks because of fog or flooding, oil traders pointed to everything from capacity constraints to a lack of buyers.“It appears that the glut of supply in the global market is only getting worse,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData. Several traders said some ships might have arrived without a buyer, which can be hard to find as ample supply and end-of-year taxes push refiners to draw down inventories.
And here, courtesy of MarineTraffic is the interactive snapshot (readers can recreate it here):
All of which explains why this is happening:
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"Gladius Michigan is going to legalize pot, probably pretty soon since the Republicans are on board."
That's good to hear! The situation was pretty dire up until recently. Bill Schuette has been making people's lives miserable up there.
"Oregon just legalized too I believe."
I don't think so, but they're headed that way soon. I think they decriminalized.
"So why Colorado where there is already a lot of competition?"
I'd rather stay in Alabama, but that's not an option. I was going to move to Colorado to begin with, but decided to move back home to Alabama. Big mistake, as it turned out. The Denver airport is the headquarters of TPTB/Illuminati, with their massive underground complex going deep down below it. Believe me, I don't want to be anywhere near those bastards. But that's where all the money is, and where the established players are.
To build this factory I need to partner with someone who's already in the industry in a big way, with access to financial backing. Colorado is where the action is. I figure if I get me a shack up in the mountains somewhere far enough away from Denver, I should be OK. I'm not planning on staying there permanently, although it's a beautiful state with lots of good people, so who knows?
"Just curious, I'm in Michigan and my husband says I should start working on a grow op. Not because we use it, we don't, but because it is a high value cash crop and I have some experience in horticulture."
I lived in Michigan for four years, in Houghton up in the U.P. It's a beautiful state, especially the U.P., but I couldn't deal with the government, which is even worse than Alabama. It's not a bad idea to learn to grow marijuana. There are billions of dollars to be made in this industry. Just understand that it will take a real commitment for you to succeed in this industry, and yes, you will need to either smoke weed or be partners with someone who does. Imagine owning a soft drink company as a person who only drinks milk and water, or a fancy restaurant as a person who only eats fast food. Not going to work.
This industry is extremely competitive and if you do not have a competitive advantage, you will be pushed out sooner or later. I've spent many years growing this plant (including those four years in Michigan as a licensed caregiver) and gone through much hardship to learn my craft. There are far too many hungry folks like me out there who are dedicated to this plant, for folks to succeed who are not truly dedicated to it. I too thought it would be easy to grow the plant because "it's just a weed." But there really is a lot to it, and furthermore, unless you have help from someone who is on the cutting edge of this industry, you will inevitably learn the old way of doing things--which is too expensive and inefficient for you to survive and prosper in the long run.
I think everybody ought to smoke weed, at least on occasion. The world would be a better place for it. I don't want to discourage you, and I respect that you are non smokers, but at the same time I have to speak realistically. Either jump in with both feet or stay out. A potential alternative is for you to invest in a cannabis business that's going places. But then again, you have to know something about a business in order to invest in it. If the idea of investing interests you, or if you would like more information about the industry, then perhaps we could talk further; send me an email at nathan.klein.17@gmail.com .
Thanks for the reply.
Knowing people who do smoke isn't a problem. Even know a small timer grower. Heck, in my 20s it seemed like everyone was smoking except the one guy who had got a batch that had been laced with PCP.
Really only interested in growing/manufacturing, not retail.
Permaculture is super interesting. You might have seen this, posted before. Book by a former vegan on how our agricultural practices are ruining the soil.
http://www.lierrekeith.com/book-ex_the-vegetarian-myth.php
The legalization of marijuana and the housing and care of old people are the two biggest growth potential industries I see on the horizon.
Very interesting. I'll give that a read.
Yes, we are indeed ruining the soil. Humanity has been ruining this planet for over 3 million years now. A little known fact is that all of the deserts of the world are man-made. The entire world used to be a lush tropical paradise, until we came in and burned down forests, overgrazed, plowed up the soil, etc. The end result is the Sahara desert. An intermediate stage is the various deserts of the Southwest USA, for example. When people first settled the Great Plains, the grass was taller than people's heads, and the organic matter in the soil was several feet thick. By the 1930s it was all gone; we had the dust bowl. Even now it has not recovered and is not really on a path towards recovery. A full recovery would be the return of the lush forests that once blanketed the Plains, before native Americans created the grasslands.
What we need is to completely rethink agriculture, and energy production. We MUST stop extracting oil from deep in the earth, because there is only so much there left to extract. It becomes progressively harder and more expensive and we are ruining the environment by doing so. That's where permaculture comes in. It is technologically possible to take biomass from a forest and convert it into synthetic oil at a sustainable price. No more digging up oil, fertilizer, etc then shipping it halfway around the country/world to sustain industry/agriculture elsewhere. We need a fully integrated system that uses the power of nature to extract energy from the sun and use it right there on site to power our civilization. A system that uses the resources we have available to their maximum potential with little waste, by using the best of mother nature and the best of industry in harmony with each other.
Now, about growing cannabis--just how far would you like to take it? What are your ambitions? Send me an email. I don't want to clutter up this comments section any more that I already have.
Double post
triple post. Stupid internet
Perhaps some of the folks that down voted you need to read this -
http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-Revised/dp/0...
Cadillac Desert- worthless enviro propaganda.
I got here first, and I got the water. It's called the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation. Fuck all the rest of you Johnny-come-lately's, it's mine.
Gladius17 , I for one think you are right about the weather mods as I remember reading about scalar waves and microwaving the ionosphere to alter jet streams , most people who do not believe this are the ones who walk and never look up. As for pot been illegal , well I never signed a contract to agree with that and I never signed a contract to say I want the police to protect me , time is short for the police as they are to stupid to see they are getting set up as well, just like the black/white , muslim /christian, police / we the people thing when the power goes down what do you think will happen , there will be a lot of cops hanging from lamp poles but again they are to stupid (order followers ) to see the beginning of their demise.
One other thing pot enables you to use your mind and see things from a different prospective , it helps undo the years of indoctrination into a system in which you must think a certain way, it also lets you see that EVERYTHING you knew as true was a lie , why do you thing TPTB hate pot. Open your mind.
Really? Most stoners I've met are wasted space, and that's not a small sample - I live in BC, bud capital of the world. If there's anything positive about it, it's that it doesn't fuck you up as much as alcohol, and on that basis I support legalization, but I don't expect that to change people's behavior. Drinkers will continue to drink, stoners will continue to stone. Nothing much will change other than a drop in the non-violent prison population, which is a good thing.
People who claim pot opens the mind are simply substituting one set of delusions with another. Fact is, if you aren't predisposed to questioning stuff, then pot won't get you there because you wouldn't consider it in the first place. OTOH, if you are predisposed, then questioning the validity of outlandish claims about pot would be high on your list.
Here's a thought. If pot generates all these startling insights, then why are Rastafarians so completely fucked up?
About your last phrase, the answer has been given a long time ago:
They lie about marijuana. Tell you, pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie!
When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well - you just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference!
- Bill Hicks -
gave you +1, btw.
"Most stoners I've met are wasted space"
Most people I've met are wasted space.
" If there's anything positive about it, it's that it doesn't fuck you up as much as alcohol"
It doesn't fuck anyone up at all, ever. Unless of course they come to the attention of TPTB.
"Drinkers will continue to drink, stoners will continue to stone. Nothing much will change other than a drop in the non-violent prison population, which is a good thing."
I'm glad to hear you feel that way. In my view, you are on my side; although you may disapprove of my lifestyle (based on your ignorance), at least you aren't trying to control me.
"People who claim pot opens the mind are simply substituting one set of delusions with another."
Not true.
"Fact is, if you aren't predisposed to questioning stuff, then pot won't get you there because you wouldn't consider it in the first place."
If you aren't predisposed to questioning stuff, then you're not a leader but a follower, right?
If you are predisposed to questioning stuff, then weed is a powerful tool for mind expansion.
"OTOH, if you are predisposed, then questioning the validity of outlandish claims about pot would be high on your list."
Such as...?
Who defines what is or is not outlandish?
I know what I know from personal experience. I have an IQ somewhere north of 140. To call me stupid or "wasted space" would be foolish.
"If pot generates all these startling insights, then why are Rastafarians so completely fucked up?"
I don't know any Rastafarians, so I couldn't tell you.
" Dave ? Dave " Dave ? "
" Dave's not here, man. "
Dood, you started with an IQ of 140. Depending on how much production you have been smoking as a result of your multi million dollar industry you are starting ( as soon as a lot of people give you a lot of money - your words, not mine ), congratulations - you currently have the cognitive ability of an order of Mickey D's french fries.
Cosmic consciousness and enlightenment has fuck all to do with doing dope.
Climb up a few more rungs on the evolutionary ladder, and you will figure it out for yourself.
LOL
You grew weed in Alabama.
You should change your ID to Wile E. Coyote - Super Genius.
LOL
Free clue: there are shitloads of people growing weed in Alabama. The hills and hollers and swamps are full of rednecks who grow weed, and have been growing weed for decades. I guess Alabama is full of geniuses. Except the government worshippers, employees, and sycophants, of course.
"I don't know any Rastafarians, so I couldn't tell you."
If your thesis is that MJ expands consciousness how can you NOT know about them, since that belief is at the core of their religion?
Here, read up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari
"It doesn't fuck anyone up at all, ever."
Not realizing your full potential because you spend most of your time lying around stoned is "fucked up" in my books. I've known plenty of people like that in my life, in fact I was one of them until I wised up.
As a child of the 60's I can state categorically that everyone I know from that time that achieved anything in life (including spiritual or metaphysical insights) did so under their own steam AFTER they laid off the drugs, pot included. Some of them still smoke of course, but only to relax. The only ones I knew that could pull it off were musicians, and those were few and far between.
If you're a musician, try this. Record the same piece high and straight, then compare. Unless you're exceptionally talented, I can guarantee the straight version sounds better.
To put it simply, you don't have any clue what you're talking about.
Maybe weed just wasn't for you. It is for me. Deal with it.
You still here tokey? Don't you have a fortune to make or something?
You still here tokey? Don't you have a fortune to make or something?
The only ones manipulating the weather is all of us.
It's a well known fact that it's Unicorn farts.
Some theme music for the weather manipulators:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq8Vpgu6JAY
Here is a link to an official gov manual from 1978 admitting to weather mod.
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/?s=Weather+Modification+-+Programs%2C...
So you are a firm believer in the following:
"Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope."—Freewheelin' Franklin.
Standard Disclaimer: Quite possibly you need to cut your cannabis intake.
I thought Phineas said that
It has more authority from someone with "cheech" in their avatar name.
We're supposed to believe that the government is effectively manipulating the weather, when it can't do anything else correctly or competently?
Even if the government had the power to affect the weather, the results would look like Obamacare. If they wanted a drought in California, there would be full reservoirs and flooding in California with a drought in the grain belt. If they wanted snow in the northeast there would be snow in Texas. If they wanted Florida wiped out by floods, then Montana and Wyoming would be flooded out. I'll believe that the government is controlling the weather when there's a category 4 hurricane in Nebraska.
If they wanted a drought to hit california there would be a CAT 5 in Mexico.
Ohh Fuck...
(just trying to help)
That's an old tired argument.
The government does things correctly and efficiently that it truly cares about - creating weapons, killing people, enslaving people, controlling people and their thoughts. Propaganda, spying, CONTROL.
Because the government can't properly implement Obamacare (which it doesn't want, it wants single payer), that it can't do anything? Yeah right.
That's an old tired argument.
Just because they've managed to do some of those things some of the time - creating weapsons, killing people, enslaving people, controlling people and their thoughts - doesn't mean that they did those things correctly, let alone efficiently.
And my example of Obamacare was only one of millions of potential examples. Kudos for taking that literally as the be all and end all of the perspective. If I want to talk about US cities in decline, you expect me to list every single one of them, rather that giving an obvious example of the worst kind?
Better not go outside tonight. The government is outside, in the moon, the stars, and the clouds.
Again there is plenty of proof that the gov. is involved in weather mod.
In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.
The majority of our food stuffs outside grain, come from the CA basin. therefore your analysis is way off.
Interesting take on things and thanks for the perspective.
I think the floating storage of oil is a huge bet that prices will go up soon, else, why bother to fill up an expensive to maintain tanker if the price is going to drop or stay the same, and you can postpone filling up the same tanker? Did someone hold a gun to the head of whoever bought this oil or could they have waited for lower prices???
So why are they betting on rising prices? Smells like a crisis in the ME is about to hit so they are stocking up?
Again, the possibility that things degenerate into WWIII looms its ugly head as a distinct possibility, but the floating storage for sure implies to me things are about to ratchet up a couple of levels of intensity...
Climate change.
(Memo to self: Stop trolling. It's not nice. Especially on Friday 13)
I'm in Florida. Don't need $600 a month to heat the house. Don't need a jacket.
But, we are having a terrible Ebola outbreak, 100s of thousands dead. News embargo. Stay away.
Alternative theme music for the weather thread...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vca7c04r95I
Beware the Lamb
good tune, but I'm kind of puzzled by the video. Are these aircraft spraying chemtrails? If so, why does it appear to be coming from the engines and not spread across the entire wingspan for better dispersal like in crop dusting? Also, wouldn't the heat from the engines degrade the chemicals, if that's where they're coming from?
"If so, why does it appear to be coming from the engines and not spread across the entire wingspan for better dispersal like in crop dusting?"
Wouldn't it be a lot more obvious what they were doing, if it were coming from the wings like that? If it's apparently coming from the engines, that brings in a high level of plausible deniability.
"Also, wouldn't the heat from the engines degrade the chemicals, if that's where they're coming from?"
I don't recall the exact name of the chemical compounds they are supposedly using for this exercise. But as I recall, they were not the type that would be degraded by enigne heat. Aluminum salts and the like.
"I don't recall the exact name of the chemical compounds they are supposedly using..."
Of course you don't.
@ gladius-
Don't sweat it buddy, you're bating a solid .300- not bad really when you consider your audience.
The oil glut is (I'm backing you up) a perverse phenomoenon of Peak Oil. As oil supplies dry up, the price spikes, whoch makes everything expensive. More expensive shit makes it harder to service debt, but debt gets serviced first, which puts a huge dent in the economy- oil prices drop as people leave/and or are booted out of the economy. The oil glut is a sign of deflation, and even with prices at the pump hovering around 2.00/gal, it is still about a dollar too expensive for any real energy-based economic expansion.
The trouble is (or the irony) that if oil prices drop much further, this will simply allow the deflationary contagion to spread to other sectors as the shale drilers will be the first to default, an action that could sread defualt contagion and bond yield contagion deeper into the economy.
But then again, at this point we are so far past the looking glass that everything is topsy turvy, and in essence everything breeds default contagion. Positive jobs numbers cause the stock market to crash and bond yields to spike, while negative jobs numbers cause more QE and greater debt leverage overhang, ie just making the probelm worse.
The same is true for energy prices. Right now, if oil prices were to stabilize, insolvent companies that are hanging on only because of cheap energy would go tits-up, while if pil prices continue to drop, we face the creeping specter of the above mentioned yield virus.
The only thing to do now is go full atavistic and destroy everything in a orgy of massive explosions, death, and wanton mayhem. We're all fucked anyway, so why not go out with a bang?
Yes, I up-voted you, and I believe in HAARP. But, like all the other interventions, all HAARP can do is make everything worse.
Sweet dreams.
Don't hold that grudge. Not appropriate. You don't know how many tips on this have gone in or what is going on.
No grudge. But I do think I can determine for myself what is, and is not, appropriate, thank you.
I do think this is at least part of the reason for what is happening...
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 16:50 | 5707745 hedgeless_horseman
Fair enough.
Said a better way, "I hate to see a wedge where none should be." That was where I saw it as "not fitting the situation." There are enough things dividing folks around here.
Nice observation HH.
I was driving A1A by the beach in Fort Lauderdale this morning and noticed 7 oil tankers anchored off the coast of Port Everglades. These deliveries are all refined products arriving from Texas and Louisiana refineries.
http://www.porteverglades.net/includes/content/images/media/Distribution...
Besides tankers, on the San Jacinto river north of the IH10 San Jacinto River Bridge or lots of bargs that are full (don'tknow if it is product or crude).
Gotta wait for rock bottom to sell... $10/brl? This is .gov, remember? Buy high and sell low!
Seriously though, that damn SPR better be overflowing at these prices!
We sold it to China. No shit.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/30/plan-to-sell-part-strategic-p...
Should be interesting, so many states depend on the gas tax to keep the municipalities afloat and gas should be going lower for a minute.
El Vaquero said (a shitload of comments ago):
Those are the only two tools in their box.
Yep, cheap energy is key.
If we had a working economy it would be great. Too bad we don't have a real economy to work with.......
Not working? Hey, I can afford to drive to Wally World to buy my government cheese on my EBT. That's working.
That's what I was thinking. Is Goldman negotiating for the contents of all these ships right now? If so watch for the start of some major escalation which cuts off supply routes.
That's the hand you'll see, the hand you won't see will be some "accident" at sea off China or in the South China Sea of one or more of these tankers.
'By a process of deflation then inflation........"
Im getting out the 454 and gonna burn em out up and down the highway while it lasts.
Do what he say! DO WHAT HE SAY!!!
The Sheriff.....is near.
Where da white women?
;-D
Mexicans don't say no after marriage.
"Don't push me man - I'll use it, I swear I'll USE IT...!!!"
Peak packers
Actually peak sensationalism, which is a hard ante to up on ZH. Worldwide ocean storage on vessels 100 m barrels? That's 110% of worldwide one day consumption. Equal perhaps to someone having 5 gallons of gas in their garage.
Are the Saudis idiots? Do they typically have such poor planning that they sell more oil than the market can bear, thus causing tankers to sit around with full loads of oil waiting on their turn to offload?
"Equal perhaps to someone having 5 gallons of gas in their garage. "
No, it's more like a tanker truck full of gasoline sitting idle next to a gas station waiting for the tanks to be low enough for him to refuel them, because the gas station supplier sent them too much fuel.
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:713452/zoom:10
FORWARD SOVIET STORAGE!
nobody move, o' d'nigrow gets it..."won't somebody help the poor man"...hep me, hep me...
dey be lotsah nigrows woikin' at da oilfeel down dey...
Peak storage indeed. Earth keeps making 'em...
Oil is mostly abiotic (ontop of biotic).
"Oil is mostly abiotic"
Possibly, but how long does it take to form?
We peaked some folks.
Over/under on when those tankers start mysteriously exploding because the insurance check is worth more than the cargo (and the ship)?
I say 2 months, tops.
Yes, and who are the douchebags who moored in the middle of the channel entrance?
Those are the handicapped parking spots.
They always get a spot those lucky bastards but when you look for a electric charger...
Over/under on when those tankers start mysteriously exploding because the insurance check is worth more than the cargo
Or a terrurist attack, they hate us for our parked oil
Mental or physical?
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Let's just be glad, errrr, that hurricane season is over. We hope!
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning.
Ohio drivers.
Ohio drivers with party plates.
Peak plates
+1 for the bad buckeye driver reference, I don't miss them one bit.
WI are worse.
Massholes for the win.
How else were they going to take selfies with the harbor in the background? Jesus, think man...
A large stick?
Yes, but are they walking softly...
I'm sorry, the answer is mooped. They're mooped in the middle of the channel entrance.
Peak moop
I fucking love you guys.
"Yes, and who are the douchebags who moored in the middle of the channel entrance?"
Asian drivers. Asian boat captains? "You leave here now!"
We'll be needing that oil for war before that time comes. Then again, how much oil does 500 mil people really need?
Nothing like a little conflict in the ME to send the prices of all your inventory skyrocketing.
Not sure, I'll have to go read the Guidestones.
50,000 Doc, the rest will use their feet, or horses,if thet're lucky.
serfs don't need no oil.
And then finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze tanker of oil, you bust the joint out. You light a match.
Was that from Goodfellas or the IMF?
Here is the scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtjyqgZAUk
Too bad for the guys who drew the short straws to work the boat holding 2 million barrels of flamable liquid off of Tianjin.
Peak kaboom
Jewish lightning always strikes when they stand to benefit most.
I was thinking the same thing NoDebt, but then my mind started taking it even further. Just think of what an easy target all these tankers are, and just think of the "value" that could be "created" with a false flag of some sort???
Sink a couple tankers and the environmentalist get to go full-retard on big oil.
Sink a couple tankers and let ISIS/ISIL (OT, but why does everyone in the world call them ISIS, but everyone in the Obama administration call them ISIL?) claim credit, and the MIC gets to go fuller-retard with the war on terror.
Sink a couple tankers and the CIA "finds" evidence of Russian involvement, and the sheeple get all fired up about taking out Vlad.
As Barry's favorite ballerina likes to say, "Dont let a crisis go to waste." And this situation is a "crisis" waiting to happen...
All these excuses.
No, the US was benefiting from high oil prices, as it had become a net exporter.
I suggest you lay off the crazy pills.
You're downvotes speak volumes as to the quality of readers on this site anymore. Every single one that voted down is a moron and does not understand why the Saudis are pumping and not reducing output as anyone who passed Econ 101 would question the Saudis motives. It obviously has nothing to do with supply and demand and everything to do with conspiring to 'attempt' to impede Russia's progression toward becoming more powerful than the USSA while many other nations including Russia flush the fiat toilet paper FRN/UST.
Peak pique
They are pumping as much as they can because the price is too low and they have bills to pay. That's all there is to it. They can afford to cut back production when oil is at $100 and push it higher to make more for themselves, but it has fallen so hard, and they have so many fixed costs that they no longer have that ability. Exactly the same as existing wells in the US. They will be pumped until they are dry to try to make debt payments. Pretty much everyone, everywhere has been caught in the same trap.
this... I haven't seen a hint of a whisper on ZH that, just this Monday, FT reported that the Saudis were going to the global bond market and planned to increase their debt from 7% to 50% of GDP _in just five years_
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d1be572a-86fd-11e5-90de-f44762bf9896.html
you have every petro economy on this ball of mud with budgets planned based on $100 bbl oil, which may as well be a fantasy at this point... where's the difference going to come from? pumping like mad on one end and issuing debt on the other, that's where...
seriously, I can't believe ZH missed this... the Saudis _never_ do this... until now...
Good catch, Saudi policy seemed to drastically change when they got their new king, Salman. I get the impression that Abdullah didn't want the Yemen invasion or the overproduction intended to wreck Russia-Iran-Venezuela producers, coincidentally all sworn enemies of ZATO. I guess Saudi Arabia gets the lebensraum of desert Sudetenland and some new mil-toys for their trouble.
Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal has said Saudi should sign a peace pact with Israel to counter Tehran. true brothers in arms.
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/52468/saudi-prince-ill-side-with-isra...
The name Suleiman is the Turkic form of the Jewish name Solomon. So why is the Saudi Arabian 'King' named Salman, not Suleiman?
I've been wondering when this was coming, as the idea of Saudi not leveraging their oil in the ground to shore up their cash-flow, but instead allow their government to collapse was not going to happen.
"There's a good reason they're pumping so much right now: to keep the price artificially low, so the American economy does not collapse, as it otherwise would have were a) the price of oil not so ridiculously cheap"
Wait a minute. Cheap oil destroys the American economy.
Can I get an amen from ZH's oil-soaked choir?
Cheap oil destroys progressive criminal assclowns who want so desperately to deprive the poor people of the world of the only thing that has done more to lift up their quality of life than anything else ever has. The progressive murderers of all stripes are freaking out, the war on cheap energy (hydrocarbons) and poor people is not going so well.
The progressive stupid, it burns.
Grimaldus
If anything, it's about breaking Russia. Even Vlad admitted last year he could only hold on for 3 years of low prices. This all started with the Ukraine bullshit.
So Putin has taken the Crimea, head slapped Ukraine, slam dunked ISIS all while Russia is being "broken"?
Wow. Putin rocks.
You got a link for that? Ty.
We are not running out of oil. The old oil fields in PA are actually being refilled by the Earth, Oil is not a fossil fuel, it is a natural product of the pressures & heat deep within the Earth that works to link Carbon, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen, Sulfur, & Oxygen into long chains of molecules.
Do a google search for 'oil fields replenishing themselves', it is happening in oil fields all over the world.
Hydrocarbons... Abiotic oil. Its a very complex issue to try to get answers on, thats for sure.
But if its true, what you would want is, control of all the major 'oil pumping' areas. Otherwise there would be no way to lever up the price.
Especially the cheapest areas to produce where you're just poking holes in the sand, like say... Iraq, for example.
Abiotic oil is equivalent to unicorn farts. Neither exists.
"Do a google search for 'oil fields replenishing themselves', it is happening in oil fields all over the world. "
The question is, are the oil fields being naturally refilled fast enough to keep the gas tank on my Chevy refilled?
"Oil is running out".
Right - we have billions of barrels in the sand here in Canada, there's billions more in shale around the world, but "We're at peak".
People who understand economics know that there is either more supply or a substitution at higher prices. Once oil gets back to $80/bbl, all the shale and oil sands stuff is viable again.
You know, if you actually THOUGHT about the situation, you'd realize that oil prices are falling because the Saudis don't like losing out to alternative (shale/oil sand) oil, so they lowered the price to cut the floor out from under the North American producers.
Otherwise, please tell me other resources that hit 'peak supply/output' while prices and demand are falling.
"Right - we have billions of barrels in the sand here in Canada, there's billions more in shale around the world, but "We're at peak".
1) How many barrels does the world burn every single day? Is this number increasing, or decreasing?
2) What good is a barrel of oil in the ground when one has to burn a 1/2 - 1 barrel of oil to extract it? And what effect does this have on the total recoverable supply? Ever heard of the term EROEI?
"People who understand economics know..."
Condescending douchebag alert. Your condescension will not fill up your Chevy, nor will it boost the economy which is currently in the depths of the Greater Depression largely as a result of unaffordably high oil prices.
"know that there is either more supply or a substitution at higher prices"
When it comes time to refill your Chevy, what will you substitute when the gasoline is too expensive? Unicorn farts?
If your Chevy is useless due to lack of fuel, what will you substitute in its place? A bicycle?
"Once oil gets back to $80/bbl, all the shale and oil sands stuff is viable again. "
Until they run out. And how long will that take at current levels of consumption?
What makes you think our civilization is sustainable at over $100/bbl pricing? How much will it cost to completely reinvent our civilization to deal with the new reality of perpetually expensive oil?
"You know, if you actually THOUGHT about the situation,"
Again with the condescension.
"you'd realize that oil prices are falling because the Saudis don't like losing out to alternative (shale/oil sand) oil, so they lowered the price to cut the floor out from under the North American producers. "
Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Their oil reservoirs are running dry, so they lowered the price to.....what? Ensure they'll run out faster and make less money in the process?
"Otherwise, please tell me other resources that hit 'peak supply/output' while prices and demand are falling. "
The supply of oxygen inside the submarine Kursk, hours after it sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea.
Yes, gladius, we are at peak oil. What you say is true. There are a lot of people on here that don't seem to be able to understand supply and demand vs. a resource. Different numbers all together. It's really not that complicated, it just takes reading the numbers and understanding what they actually mean. The downvotes you've recieved are from people who haven't thought it through past the supply and demand portion. Peak oil doesn't mean we are out of oil. It just means we can't pump any more than we already are easily. If you have any question about that, just look to fracking and arctic oil exploration. It's about as obvious as it can get, it just isn't what people want to hear.
Plus, the Saudis are experiencing cash flow problems to keep their organ grinder monkeys on their leashes. They have to pump for some interim events that I can only speculate about. Maybe they need more war toys.
I call this peak bullshit. Oh wait,.. it's just the internets...
I remember when Goldman said that oil would never consistently fall below $100/bbl ever again.
And I remember Goldman leasing tankers to fill em up and wait for the price to go up.
Whenever the Squid gives advice, I always assume they're on the other side of the trade.
muppet fuckers
Peak splinters
Oil production would be declining without CB manipulation and cheap money. QE, ZIRP and possibly future NIRP in the WRC have been and will be used to keep oil production rising until the system just flat out breaks. We're not going to see a Hubbert curve, we're going to see a Seneca cliff.
LOL. I see gold barges lining up in the Thames.
As I read the OP, I thought exactly the same thing. This has "$10/bbl" written all over it. A lot of producers are teetering on the edge of insolvency most are being propped up by easy access to credit -- but credit is starting to get tight. SA is hoping this price point can be held for a year or more, it will annihilate competition. If that happens some of these producers will leave the field and never return, their oil resources are nearly depleted anyway and without willing muppets to invest in the low-EROEI extraction ponzi, it's done.
Here's where it becomes interesting: Maybe the Saudis don't survive either. Or maybe just Russia or just Venezuela. What if the economics are so bad that SA loses its shit internally and the place reduces to anarchy? What if Russia decides to start playing global chess (again) but with their oil resources? What if Venezuela becomes a failed state and sets itself on fire?
I would give at least one of those outcomes happening an 80% likelihood. And two or more of them (and a host of other ugliness) is still even odds.
If it plays out the way i think it could, the 100 years long era of oil-derived wealth generation is about to end.
That's it Cougar.
We are watching instability in the feedback loops of the economy. When the feedback loops are no longer strong enough to stabilize the output variable the valves slam open and shut chaotically.
"the 100 years long era of oil-derived wealth generation is about to end."
Bingo
All of that peak oil in the hands of lowlife small competitors needs to be coerced into the clutches of their rightful owners, the Big Boys. Of course, the transfer will be pennies on the dollar as usual. This is just another manipulation preparing for another rinse and repeat Daisy Chain. Is Marc Rich still breathing?
Cheap money? It takes more oil to buy money than in a long, long time. The oil price tanking (pun intended) looks more like a leading indicator that the CB's alphabet soup didn't work, and the Deflation Monster is ready to bite off Janet's head.
Yes, ZIRP and QE are cheap money policies, and they have driven a bunch of the bullshit that has been going on since Lehman. (Yes, meddling happened before that, but not QE.) The problem is that something resembling a real market is starting to rear its head in the energy portion of junk bonds. The Fed has ignored reality. We will all have to pay the consequences.
Or as my daughter used to say when she was five -- the conk-uh-quenkies.
We're officially off the edge of the map now. This situation could take us anywhere. I don't think there has been a time in the last 10,000 years when so many humans were reliant on so many resources coming from so many different places over so great a distance as we all are right now. Nothing like this was anywhere near possible until the last 50 years. And the amounts of resources we are consuming (and need to consume) are simply staggering. We've grown to nearly 7 billions of us -- up from just over 2.5 billion at the end of WW2 -- and we were burning through resources in 1950 like there was no tomorrow. The rate of burn now is monumental, fantastic, insane, unimaginable. Any hiccup at this point and probably our shit just comes completely unwired.
The Fed and other CB are drowning. They bought themselves and their leadership (private and public) a little time -- ten years. I think they are going to give it up soon and let The Market do what it does. The problem is the market is not mature enough to tackle something of this size and complexity. The supposed collective intelligence is simply not going to be there at this scale. Nor will the reaction times prove able. Nor are the market players nearly knowledgeable enough now (many investors have never seen a real recession least of all compressive deflation). Everyone will take profits and shift losses to the public sector, but since they will all do exactly the same thing at the same instant it won't work as the buffers become saturated within hours or days and the reactive systems implode on internal jamming. The entire system locks up. How is the market supposed to fix itself? It cannot. The Fed and the CB have beeing laboring to keep all this OUT of the market for that simple reason.
Once the markets wake up and start to react, this shit show is over. Just over.
And we get a complexity collapse. Supply chains are insane, as are the rules and regulations that dictate how they operate. The push is to increase that complexity even further when it is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. This is because a bunch of corrupt crony cocksuckers want to turn a fast buck. There is one bright, shinging light to all of this though:
The federal government will become a whole lot less relevant to our lives.
Just hope that it doesn't become that way via nuclear war.
Sadly, nuclear war might be the quickest way back to a (maybe) sustainable 1 billion humans. The alternative is a lot of people drowning in the sea trying to get to any other place that has food and fuel. God help us, we are faced with these kinds of choices in the future.
I'll take the economic collapse. I don't want to have to worry about whether or not there is fallout in my food, and once it is clear that shit is going to change, we might be able to cushion the landing a bit. Besides,
http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430...
tells you that us in the Western hemisphere aren't the ones who will suffer the most under those circumstances.
Not to mention a population who doesn't understand their dependency on so many differeny supply chains and the fragility of it all.
It's not just that they don't understand, it is also that they are lacking the skills and knowledge to transition to a lower energy lifestyle. There are a lot of fuckers out there who lack the culinary skills to cook anything more difficult than a box of mac 'n cheese. Never mind cooking over a wood stove or an open wood fire. And really never mind raising, butchering and then cooking a chicken. And how many could tan leather? Spin fiber into thread? Then weave it?
Yep the world is awash in $80 - 110/barrel oil.
Just need to damage some pipelines in the Middle East and everything will be fixed.
Peak leaks
"Remember peak oil from a couple years ago? "
Oil production has peaked this year. its that Demand has collapsed, likely do to a combination of peak credit in the emerging markets and declining demand caused by the higher energy costs. Oil is still in above $40 bbl, and in late 1990s the prices was about $10 to $12. Drillers are tapping the bottom barrel, Deep Water, Shale, Tar sands, etc. KSA has been drilling like made using in-fill drilling to skim the remaining oil off the top of a sea of water. If you go to Americo web site and start reading the Tech articles, you see how bad the situation is because they are using lots of high-tech and exotic extraction techiques to get out oil trapped in pockets. KSA has also started using CO2 injection to recover trapped oil.
Also consider that the cost for basic commodities such as Copper, and Steel has collapsed.
Try this out.
The demand for all commodities has been artificially supported for decades by the CBs and other players.
Old world order collapses. Game over.
Commodities, including oil, now returning to their "free market" price.
I'm sorry did you just say that everything right now exists as a free market price. You didn't just say that did you?
Not yet.
The prices of commodities, especially oil, have much further to go.
Down.
Old world order breaks down, so does the price manipulation that supported the scheme.
Vacuum gets filled by a freer market.
$20 oil versus $120 oil? A much freer market.
Multi-polar world.