Category: Crude Oil
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Thursday, December 11, 2014
Russia’s Unfazed by Falling Crude Oil Prices / Commodities / Crude Oil
Oil is not quite as powerful a weapon against modern-day Russia as one might think.
By arguing that the slump in oil prices will finish off Russia just like it did the Soviet Union, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing in the Daily Telegraph, is forgetting how far Russia has come since those dark days.
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Thursday, December 11, 2014
Clearing The Decks For The Crude Oil Subprime Rout / Commodities / Crude Oil
The Clown Prince of Overpriced Oil Bows Out
Andy Hall, the celebrated speculator on rising oil prices and related asset values is bowing out. Not long ago, he was still loudly telling the boomers that oil prices would inevitably bounce and could soon hit $150 a barrel, partly due to US shale oil "being a dud". Hall railed at anybody, like me, or Hall's pet hate, Citigroup's Edward L. Morse, who dared to argue that $75 for a barrel of oil is a very reasonable price – in fact a lot more than today's price! US natural gas and world coal, for example, provide energy at around $25 to $30 per barrel equivalent. Is oil really worth that much more? If so, why?
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Crude Oil Price Tumbles After OPEC Releases 2015 Forecast / Commodities / Crude Oil
The demand for oil in 2015 will drop to its lowest level since 2002 because of an oversupply of crude and stagnant economies in China and Europe, according to OPEC's latest forecast. And that's just one of several sour estimates.OPEC's monthly report said demand for the cartel's oil will fall to 28.9 million barrels per day next year, 280,000 barrels lower than its previous forecast and the lowest in 12 years. Add to that a new report from the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA), which also cut its 2015 forecast for growth in global oil demand by 240,000 barrels per day, down to 880,000 barrels per day.
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Thursday, December 11, 2014
Where Are Crude Oil Bulls? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Trading position (short-term; our opinion): No positions are justified from the risk/reward perspective.
Although crude oil hit a fresh multi-year low after the market's open, the commodity rebounded in the following hours supported by a weaker greenback. In this way, light crude gained 0.40%, but still remains under the previous lows. What's next?
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Thursday, December 11, 2014
Where the Big Global Oil Players are Putting Their Money Now / Commodities / Crude Oil
Dr. Kent Moors writes: Marina and I are headed back to sunny Florida. It will be a welcome change from the brisk weather in London.
Not that I had much time to take in the scenery…
While my better half sampled the shops in Kensington High Street, I was in high level meetings in a place known as “The City.”
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Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Norway's Falling Crude Oil Output / Commodities / Crude Oil
New oil projects are being scrapped in Norway amid falling production and low oil prices.
Long held up as the model for managing oil abundance, Norway has painstakingly sought to prevent the problems that occur with other natural resource-based economies, such as corruption, slow economic growth, currency appreciation, and subsequently, deindustrialization.
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Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Crude Oil and the War Cycle 2015 and Beyond / Commodities / Crude Oil
This year witnessed the bottom of one of several components of the 120-year cycle of inflation and deflation. The cycle to which I'm referring is the 24-year cycle. Of particular relevance is that this cycle answers to the cycle of war.
Since 1894 when the previous 120-year Grand Super Cycle bottomed and a new one began, there have been four military conflagrations at each subsequent bottom of the 24-year cycle. Most of these wars have been major in scope. The first such instance of war occurred in the years leading up to 1918, which saw the first 24-year cycle bottom of the current 120-year cycle. The 24-year cycle that bottomed that year saw the ending to the First World War. Remembering that the final "hard down" phase of the 24-year cycle approximates to almost two-and-a-half years, this represented roughly the second half of that major war, a war that involved the United States.
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Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Crude Oil Price Sinking Or Rebounding / Commodities / Crude Oil
Trading position (short-term; our opinion): No positions are justified from the risk/reward perspective.
On Friday, crude oil lost 1.65% as a stronger U.S. dollar and news that Saudi Arabia lowered the price of oil for buyers in the U.S. and Asia continued to weight. As a result, light crude moved lower for the fourth time in a row and closed the week at its lowest level since mid-Jul 2009.
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Saturday, December 06, 2014
Opecology Or The Art Of Saying Nothing / Commodities / Crude Oil
The Threat of $57 Oil
The recent head of the World Petroleum Council, Renato Bertani speaking from Houston in interview with Russia Today TV, December 1st, was set an increasingly ridiculous set of questions by the energetic if dumb interviewer lady in the Moscow bureau. She asked him if Peak Oil was true and if ISIS or ISIL was pricing its stolen oil (she said $30 a barrel) at the “right price”? Would oil get really cheap before it disappeared (not cheap after it disappeared)? Is fracking sustainable and are US producers lying when they say $57 a barrel is a price they can live with? Will hydrogen-fueled cars wipe out world oil demand? Would global warming terrify us so much we woke up one day and totally renounced oil? How will OPEC stabilize and control the market and set the right oil price for everybody (she didn't suggest we ask Goldman Sachs how they do it). Time for a sucker's rally!
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Crude Oil Price Slump: 7% Hit for Global Hotel Stock Prices and 25% Hit for Dubai Hotel Revenues Is Predicted / Commodities / Crude Oil
There is an increasing adjustment to the idea that the “totally unexpected” slump in oil prices to below $70 may prevail for some time.The model that predicted since 2011 Brent would, at some point, bottom at $67 which is just 3% below where it reached yesterday (not bad for a prediction made three years ago)... says the slump will last four years.
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Saturday, December 06, 2014
Global Crude Oil Consumption - What Countries Have Increased or Decreased Usage Since 2009? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Reader David Epperson sent in some interesting charts on global oil usage that he produced from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. The data is through the end of 2013.
David writes...
Read full article... Read full article...Hello Mish,
I was curious how much oil consumption had declined over the last few years, so I went to the EIA web site, downloaded the consumption data and produced the following charts.
Friday, December 05, 2014
Why OPEC Will Tolerate Cheap Crude Oil Price / Commodities / Crude Oil
Despite falling oil prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) voted on November 27th not to cut production in order to boost prices. The key to this decision appears to have been the attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has long been the first among equals in the coalition. Not surprisingly, the decision led to further oil price declines, and led many observers to conclude that OPEC has largely lost the ability to upwardly influence the price of petroleum. But this determination ignores the wider geopolitical considerations that may be convincing Saudi Arabia to be perfectly content, for now, with lower prices.
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Thursday, December 04, 2014
OPEC is Playing a Losing Hand (Get Ready to Win Some Heavy Money) / Commodities / Crude Oil
Every 10 or 20 years a series of watershed events come together that change the face of the international energy picture.
The Saudi-led oil war is one of these pivotal situations.
And while others are fretting about what the OPEC production move means, I’m actually meeting with the guys who made the decision.
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Thursday, December 04, 2014
The Myth of Lower Oil Prices Will Hit Consumers / Commodities / Crude Oil
Michael E. Lewitt writes: Media elites and Wall Street cheerleaders are greeting lower oil prices with open arms.
Investors should beware these self-appointed experts bearing gifts.
Oil prices are falling for reasons that should be surprising to nobody: supply has been rising and demand has been falling. If prolonged, which it is likely to be, the drop in oil prices is going to be destabilizing geopolitically and damaging economically.
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Thursday, December 04, 2014
Could Falling Crude Oil Prices Spark a Financial Crisis? / Commodities / Crude Oil
The oil and gas boom in the United States was made possible by the extensive credit afforded to drillers. Not only has financing come from company shareholders and traditional banks, but hundreds of billions of dollars have also come from junk-bond investors looking for high returns.
Junk-bond debt in energy has reached $210 billion, which is about 16 percent of the $1.3 trillion junk-bond market. That is a dramatic rise from just 4 percent that energy debt represented 10 years ago.
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Commodities Year End Low / Commodities / Crude Oil
After waiting all year for the expected year-end low in commodities, SPSGCI should finally be there (although it probably doesn’t feel that way for oil bulls). Last month’s low at 510 shows up as a possible low in my price forecasting model just as a monthly cycle points to a low in November (or December). The next monthly cycle high is not due until October 2015.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2014
The Inside Story on OPEC’s Oil Price War / Commodities / Crude Oil
Dr. Kent Moors writes: My meetings here in Dubai are at the Burj Al Arab, the fabled “seven-star hotel” built like a huge ship’s sail on its own man-made island.
At center stage are some of the region’s top oil policy makers, including a rather impressive forty-one year old, His Excellency Suhali Mohamed Faraj Al-Mazrouei.
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Monday, December 01, 2014
If Crude Oil Price Can Drop 40%, What’s Gold Going To Do? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Amusing, that Swiss vote today. Or rather, the three votes. I can’t oversee why the first one, the hike in taxes for foreigners, was rejected. It would seem reasonable that everyone living in a country pays a similar amounts in taxes, but perhaps there’s another angle to the topic that I haven’t read about.
The second vote, the one on immigration limits, initiated by an eco group, looks easier to understand. In a country smack in the middle of continental Europe, which has 3 official languages and where 25% of the population are foreigners, forcing the government to limit immigration by 80% from one day to the next, from 80,000 to 16,000 people, seems to be quite simply too steep a demand.
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Sunday, November 30, 2014
Oil Charts - Black Friday in The Energy Markets / Commodities / Crude Oil
Tonight I would like to update a few oil charts I posted several weeks ago when oil was breaking out of that multi year five point triangle reversal pattern.
Editor's Note: See the links below to follow the evolution of this move in the Friday Night Energy Series.
Before we look at the bigger picture I want to show you a short term daily chart that had an interesting day. There are several things I like to look at when I see a stock that looks like it's breaking out. First, it's nice to see an increase in volume but sometimes it happens a day or to later. Secondly, it's always nice to see a gap where you were expecting a breakout. That gives you a little more confidence when your anticipating a breakout and it happens right where it should. The third thing I like to look for is a long bar that covers a lot of ground. It tells us that, in oils case, there were no more bulls left to defend the support zone, so they retreat en mass looking for the next support zone to try and defend. In a bear market all the bulls can do is put up some minor support as the big trend is down and they'll be overrun again in due time by the bears. You can clearly see this on the short term daily chart for oil below.
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Saturday, November 29, 2014
Crude Oil Price Crash - What to Expect Next / Commodities / Crude Oil
Looking back to 2007 (seven years ago) we have seen the price of crude oil perform incredible price swings. No matter the time frame in which we observe price when an extreme price spike takes place due to news/event, statistics show that half if not all the event driven price spike will eventually be negated in the future.
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