Looks like Bloomberg is editorializing (or at least has a headline writer with a sense of humor...) on price predictions...

Bloomberg:

Let's speculate:
1. All kinds of things happening to increase pricing for crude.
2. Katrina & Rita hit
3. Taking out lot's of refineries
4. Causing a temporary glut of oil 'in the pipeline'
5. Driving crude prices temporarily down
6. So OPEC pulls back on production
7. So crude prices restabilize at their previous higher prices.

What we don't know about is why #1, why pricing for crude rose to begin with? Is it possible that OPEC is indeed preparing for Peak Oil, but from their perspective? If I were an Oil Exporter like Saudi Arabia, I'd want to stretch the usable lifetime of my countries primary export as long as possible.

How can anal-ysts be so sure in their prediction, predicting even to the second decimal?

$61.84 means the last number (the 4) is unsure, but that the 61.8 really is sure. At least that is how I learnt it worked in school. If I would predict oil I would say price is going to be 0,6 or (0,60 if I felt really sure) centidollars* per barrel.

I you see what I mean.


* 1 centidollar = 100 dollars

Could it be that the people who sell oil have a price in mind now around $62 a barrel? They want to keep it there. In the 60's the Texas Railroad Comission and OPEC kept the price at a certain level for a long time. Maybe as Andrew McKillop said about 3 years ago, The world needs $60 oil. The price fluctuates, but it looks like it goes up and down to around $62-65. They may have settled on that as a price for now. What do you think?

Could it be that:

The high price of oil causes industry to scale back?

Scaled back industry reduces the demand for oil -- it causes fewer buyers outbidding each other for the oil so the price falls?

DJIA has fallen every day that oil has?

All that i know is that oil is above 63 again and gas in my town in 2.65/gallon, while diesel sits @ 3.19! (OUCH!)...be tough owning a diesel right now.

Yup

Frank

What has been going on is the refiners have been doing a great job of keeping up gasoline production since K and R hit. But this whole time the refiners have been stealing from Peter to pay Paul. They just cannot make enough refined products that have been able to make in the past.

With winter coming they have to switch to heating oil production and that switch is going to come at the expense of gas prices which will put a serious dent in the american consumer.

The prices in the futures markets are headed for more gains.

Here is an article on bloomberg which shows which way the wind is blowing today. Bloomberg

Ouch! Heating oil is up over 4 cents a gallon too. That's going to hurt, because people are filling their oil tanks now around here. The average household will have trouble paying almost $2.60 a gallon! We're in trouble now! I'm cutting more wood!

I don't remember which group EIA maybe? anyways they updated their forcast today. Basically now they say demand would be down 90,000 barrels/day but supplies would be down 900,000 barrels/day so demand destruction is happening but it's not enough to stop a shortage so Up goes the price.

The price of regular gas is down to $2.45 a gallon here. We're in an alternate universe, where the price of gas goes down! Somebody suggested that our governor may have scared Irving with talk of price gouging after the storms and they're keeping it down around here. (near Canada) Is it going to stay that way? Is it that cheap in the rest of the country?

A relative reported paying $4.75 for diesel in Needles CA.

Strange...

Today unleaded regular was 2.46---not seen since prehurricane destruction when it was 2.52...

Diesel still is @ 3.19

If i had diesel i would park it! I still can't imagine gas going much lower???

My understanding is that the bias of refinery production has been rigged to favour petrol (gasoline) at the expense of Diesel, hence the disparity of the prices. I would guess that this tactic means that the rising cost burdens arent directly placed on the average guy on the street.

Obviously as diesel costs feed indirectly to hauled products then on to the the end users that will be when things get noticed.

By then though hopefully circumstances will have improved , there may be more oil getting refined and generally imbalances in Diesel / Petrol may start to sort themselves out.

I hope you guys in the US get a kind winter and none of the bad prophecies come to pass.

Here in the UK the NG situation is meant to be pretty dire with supply cut offs if we get particularly cold. Fortunately it seems to be pretty mild here still , I was even driving with the roof down today , quite a feat for these parts in Mid October.

Paul

Hell this a monster thread, nearly 100pages, >100,000 reads. I think its another record!

Prices headed up again on fears over Wilma. It's a bit early to get too worked up, since it's not even goin to hit until next weekend, and the cone of possibility includes the entire gulf. People are really nerved up.