The new figure is up 530,000 b/d on an earlier forecast based on supplies in the first two weeks of the month due to better-than-expected production from Iran and the UAE, said Petrologistics head Conrad Gerber.

Schlumberger

Perhaps Conrad has set up another canary trap...

And that office of his above the McDonald's in Geneva must have seen a bit more interest lately...I wonder who is handler is now...now that 'ol Bill Casey of the CIA has passed on...

Simmons said:

"The single best data we get on OPEC oil production, the first source of media, comes from a fabulous firm called Petrologistics in Geneva, Switzerland. In case none of you have ever been to the offices of Petrologistics — I haven't, I've just heard a lot about it — it's a one-man show over a grocery store in Geneva. Conrad Gerber. I think it's basically a scam. He's frontrunning for somebody [inaudible] because there is no way on earth that anybody could be over a grocery store in Geneva and say, "Saudi Arabia is now producing..." But the fact that everybody has been so clammed up on their own information, we've left the world held hostage to Conrad Gerber's [inaudible] eye ... is itself alarming."

Here is something I hadn't seen before on Conrad: He made a recent presentation to a business group and asked if prices were going much higher!

"Mr. Conrad Gerber has kindly made available his presentation: "Oil at $99 a Barrel?"

It also has a picture and some background info:

http://www.executives-int.ch/en/latest_events.asp?id=619

Here is the very informative background piece on Petrologistics by Jeff Gerth:

 Petro-Logistics is very well connected in the gulf and the Black Sea

By Jeff Gerth

12-08-03 From his spare office over a grocery store in Geneva, Conrad Gerber can sway world oil markets. Mr Gerber runs a small firm, Petro-Logistics, that collects and analyses data on the world's supplies of oil. His confidential reports, which cost his select list of clients as much as $ 5,000 a month, often find their way into the business press, typically causing jumps or dips in the volatile petroleum markets.
Mr Gerber freely admits that he first learned about the oil business in the 1970's when he was helping his country, then known as Rhodesia and now called Zimbabwe, to circumvent international sanctions and procure illegal oil. Combining the skills of a contraband trader with those of a spy, he acknowledges that his company uses tricks from intelligence work to pierce the curtain of secrecy raised by oil-producing countries, especially the members of OPEC in the Persian Gulf.
"All the countries in the gulf have their secrets," Mr Gerber said, "but we have managed to penetrate that obscurity."

....

Tracking oil shipments is risky. Some countries -- including Kuwait, according to Mr Gerber and others in the trade -- prohibit reporting vessel data. Ten years ago, Mr Gerber said, a tracker in the Persian Gulf disappeared after a Petro-Logistics report on oil production was seen by officials of a state-owned oil company in the region. Mr Gerber declined to say what happened to his tracker, but an associate said he was presumed dead. Mr Gerber identified the country, but asked that its name be withheld, saying he still does business there.
After that incident, Mr Gerber said, he put in place procedures to stop unauthorized leaks of his most closely held data. One leak prevention technique involved an intelligence trick he called "the old canary trap," in which he imperceptibly altered each document given to clients as a way to identify those who leaked a report. Since putting the canary trap in place, Mr Gerber said, he has not lost any other trackers.

Mr Gerber worked as an economist in the government of Rhodesia. He started his company in 1980, shortly after the United Nations lifted sanctions against the country. Among his business associates and friends, Mr Gerber counted Theodore G. Shackley, one of the CIA's most famous spymasters, who led efforts to battle Fidel Castro when he was station chief in Miami in the early 1960's. Mr Shackley engaged in some oil trading after he retired from the CIA in 1979. Mr Gerber said he was at Mr Shackley's bedside just before he died last year.
His client base, initially built around an oil trader who worked with Mr Shackley, eventually expanded to include official agencies, major oil companies -- both private and government-owned -- and other traders. His clients may use his reports to fit in the crude oil futures markets. Mr Gerber says he does not trade himself.

...

more here:

http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cne33676.htm