I doubt wilma, no matter how destructive it is to oil production, will have much of an effect. Look what happened with rita.

And you know that soon people will start declaring, "$100 oil by the end of the week!" "$8.00 gas by Sunday!" "Martial law by next week!" "Collapse of society by Halloween!" "Yellowstone erupts by Christmas!"

I think people overestimate the fragility of our society, maybe?

If Rita was as powerful as Katrina and actually hit Houston as its center, then you will see major catastrophy!

Regarding price and things related to price, people underestimated releasing reserves will do to price. Bush, Sr. and Clinton were able to induce price stability with it and we see it happen again.

US strategic oil reserve is like a credit card.

When you are short of cash, you use your credit card.

When US is short of oil, it uses its strategic oil reserve.


Now what was it my mother used to tell me about using my credit card to substitute for cash? Now I remembered! THE PAYBACK IS A BITCH.

What percentage of gulf oil production is still offline? 30%? Katrina beat up on everything pretty good, Rita kicked it really good when it was down. The fact that this hasn't trickled through to the markets is besides the point. It will catch up just like ivan did.

ohanian,

historically, it has been very easy to pay it back. refineries will buy oil during the offseason and give it back to US. US does not sell its oil on the market. It just lends to refineries who promised to pay it back under a certain time frame. It allows refineries to play short term on the market.



Ivan? What damage did Ivan do that affects the US economy so badly in regards to oil?

I am only aware of the fact that oil platforms took very very long time to fix and get back to production, but was not aware it had major repercussions.

I think with $3+ gas, we are seeing major conservation.
Gasoline consumption has been down and down. Over 1% down is a major move in the oil industry. IEA has said they think this is temporary, but if gas prices keep this high, I don't think it is temporary. After all, people are actually buying small cars with 30+ mpg. That is almost doubling efficiency.

Crude oil prices are coming back below $60 for the first time in months!

As of Friday, October 21st, 2005, MMS reports:



Ref: http://www.mms.gov/ooc/press/2005/press1021.htm

It didn't last for long. Oil back above 60$ :

reuters

Oil may be on the rebound again. It's at almost $62. Gas is up 5 cents. What's going on? Is there some news we don't know driving it up? the cold winter coming? Some report or something?

Its on a tear!

62.30 last i checked...something up or what???

Report comes out tomorrow...bad news?

62.40

a gain of 2.08 that is a pretty big jump in one day.