THE 2012 PO.com Oil Price Challenge

[Midessa]

Ding! Ding!

The captain has turned on the fasten seatbelts sign. Please put your seat backs and tray tables in the full upright positions as we are currently experiencing heavy turbulence. Everyone should take crash positions and prepare for a hard landing.

Sometime after July 4th, watch for dangerously falling prices.

[SeaGypsy]

Wrong. There is a bottom on what the majors will sell for and it is not 'dangerously lower' than $80. The spigots will start shutting about when your prediction kicks in, that's already slated. I would be extremely surprised to see any significant dip below $75, certainly not sustained for any length of time. There will be a spike asap. The suppliers need return to their new $100+ normal asap. The rest of the economy will just have to live with that. The speculators will ensure that there isn't a steady drift. A new deal in Europe, however temporary, will buoy confidence enough to generate another wave....

[PeakOiler]

With a new low reported this week, there has been some shifting in the standings:



I didn't expect to go from #20 to #11 in just one week! That was a surprise!

[SeaGypsy]

I didn't expect to be out of Cog & Kub's dust just yet either! Now all we need is some more EU money printing contract resolution, a bit of a new war on the side perhaps? This week would be ideal, thanks PTB!

[Midessa]

Wrong. There is a bottom on what the majors will sell for and it is not 'dangerously lower' than $80. The spigots will start shutting about when your prediction kicks in, that's already slated. I would be extremely surprised to see any significant dip below $75, certainly not sustained for any length of time. There will be a spike asap. The suppliers need return to their new $100+ normal asap. The rest of the economy will just have to live with that. The speculators will ensure that there isn't a steady drift. A new deal in Europe, however temporary, will buoy confidence enough to generate another wave....

Well SeaGypsy, you have won the last two years so I have every reason to believe that you are right. And I hope that you are. I don't want to see lower oil prices. My prediction is based on pessimism mostly. Anyway, there is no love and respect left for the rest of us because you already won it all.

[seenmostofit]

The force appears to be SSTTRROONNGGGGGGG with Obiwan!

Obiwan...speak!! Do you think the closing price can really stick around the $85 range until the end of the year? Plenty of time for your near perfect other guesses to be destroyed of course, but the race is half run, and you have 2/3's of the field covered pretty well.

[SeaGypsy]

So it looks like we have our low? Could be a black swan still, but the accord in Europe (as predicted) has triggered a bounce. This puts me as leader for the low, should it last, with an error of 60 cents. Not bad, now up we go again....

Buy orders will be flooding through to brokers this week.
Edit: I am quite sure we will see a new high for the year. the earlier one was based on anemia. The next will be based on unwarranted euphoria over Europe (the band aid nature of the fix), the Saudis turning down their taps over the next few weeks and the pending of more NATO action in the ME.

[SeaGypsy]

Yep, it's a record breaking bounce according to tonight (Mon Oz time) 10% in 3 business days. Obiwan & Pablo will still cloud my vision (pun unintended) , for the next week or 2 at least. BTW Peakoiler, what is our official low last week?

[PeakOiler]

Yep, it's a record breaking bounce according to tonight (Mon Oz time) 10% in 3 business days. Obiwan & Pablo will still cloud my vision (pun unintended) , for the next week or 2 at least. BTW Peakoiler, what is our official low last week?

I take it you can't see the latest scorecard too? The last official low was $78.20. I hope PO.com isn't going to text-only messages. I don't even see the "smilies" icons next to the Post Reply screen anymore...

[SeaGypsy]

Smileys are on 'post reply' not 'quick reply
Sorry my body clock is out of whack.

Well now we are all in for some fun.... YeeeeeeHahhhhh!

[SeaGypsy]

Regardless of the outcome of our little event here, I am most looking forward to Pop's theorem, graphics work prediction outcome. (I guess that's what your guess is based on Pops?) My prediction was that there will be a breakthrough Pop's line, which presupposes a top price based on decreasing market capacity (ability or willingness) to meet price shocks/ spikes, sooner rather than later. I'm not at all a graph plotting wiz. My reflection is that Pop's is fundamentally (as well as mathematically) correct; but that there will be breakthrough spikes punctuating the linear slide, forming another kind of 'bumpiness' to the plateau. If certain posters around here are correct, this yo-yo cycle is a very long way from over.
(Cross referenced from Brent thread/ Would love to see one from Pops on the same meme re.WTI)

The base line definitely seems to be reinforced this year (at present).
Memoe had some IMO very insightful views on the relevant geo political climate effects in another thread, suggesting there are very complex and dangerous deals going on to reinforce this high end production base cost/ real world minimum price reflection; scary but (wow).

Welcome to peak oil and the bumpy plateau!

[Pops]

This was my latest doodle from a couple of weeks ago, Gypsie, Brent went through the "wedge" I drew earlier, first the ceiling but then fell on rising commercial stocks (spare capacity) but not quite to the floor line ($90+/-) and is now up a little.



So the question is what is the band now? I can't see why prices would be rising with demand falling, stocks increasing and refineries running at 92%(?) capacity unless this is the dead cat bounce before a bigger drop.

I'd guess if by some miracle the EU and China don't go into bankruptcy - and - governments keep inventing money, the world price is going to bounce along around $100 - $120 which appears to be about as much as the economy can stand. Add in your favorite black swan weight as a volatility factor and subtract out whatever for local conditions in Cushing, Oklahoma to get WTI.

Nothin to it

[PeakOiler]

Smileys are on 'post reply' not 'quick reply
Sorry my body clock is out of whack.

Well now we are all in for some fun.... YeeeeeeHahhhhh!

Yes, that's what I wrote above, that smilies were not showing up in the "Post Reply" screen. I've never used the "Quick Reply" function.

This evening, however, I can see the images again! Hooray! I thought I might have to give up being the scorekeeper for the PO.com Challenge if I couldn't see the images. Pops and jdmartin know Excel, so one of them would have to take over the responsibility of score-keeping if I get, say, run over over by the Hostess Twinkie truck tomorrow... lol

btw, if the high price goes to $121.23, and somewhat above, (which I don't think it will now) I would still have a chance of beating you, Seagypsy! (Assuming the year's low stays at $78.20.)

The race is only half over. We'll see what happens...

[SeaGypsy]

I think we will see more than a dead cat bounce, more like a ceiling test, sooner than later. Pops, have you been out picking strawberries? There is a new accord in Europe, for however long it lasts, likely at least the rest of this year. I don't think there is any shortage of demand for oil under about $80. Also with SA turning down the spigots this and next month, optimism about EU + restricted supply out of SA and Iran, other Arab Spring states, no movement but up makes sense for the time being.

The rest of this year's race looks more intense than ever.

[PeakOiler]

Pops, could I get a copy of the Excel workbook that you used to make the charts you showed us above? I thought it would be interesting to do the same with WTI data.

EIA reported a new WTI low price on June 28th, but as most are aware, there's been a jump in prices in just the last couple of days.
(Edit: Please ignore the "As of June 26" in the scorecard. That should read "As of 3-July".)



I updated the 2012 Oil Price Challenge Leader's list:

Kublikhan 35 27%
Repent 34 27%
Cog 30 23%
Obiwan 26 20%
Daniel_Plainview 3 2%
# of reported days: 128 100%

I'm thinking Obiwan may have been one of the aliases that a banned poster had, and that's why we don't read any more comments from Obiwan.

[Beery1]

Things seem to be moving up again. Of course, since I've said it, prices will probably drop like a stone.

If they do keep moving up, they still have a way to go before the leadership changes drastically, but if it gets back past the 100 mark, we might see some interesting changes.

[seenmostofit]

I'm thinking Obiwan may have been one of the aliases that a banned poster had, and that's why we don't read any more comments from Obiwan.

Interesting. So posters with the ability to lead the price boards for long periods of time are the ones we want to make darn sure we don't ever hear from again?

[PeakOiler]

Here's the latest scorecard:



I'm in the top ten!

[PeakOiler]

Interesting. So posters with the ability to lead the price boards for long periods of time are the ones we want to make darn sure we don't ever hear from again?

Only the moderators could confirm my suspicion.

[SeaGypsy]

Can I be beaten by a banned poster? Even if he has reincarnated and won't admit so? Oh well, it's still early days...
Anyone want to know how I do it?