[Twilight]

wtf is a yergin? is it some form of measure?

It is a unit of measure. A reference.

In a column in Forbes Magazine, published on 11/1/04, Daniel Yergin, in response to a question about the future direction of oil prices, dismissed concerns about oil supplies and asserted that oil prices on 11/1/05 would at $38 per barrel.

[Novus]

The Yergin is a measurement of stupidity named after Daniel Yergin who was the most influential oil analyst among market oil traders. He infamously denied peak oil on CNBC and repeatedly predicted $35 oil. Oil never once traded at or below $35 from the time of his prediction onward. He also made a point by point analysis of why he believed $35 oil was just around the corner. His analysis was parroted by the cornucopians like it was the bible of cheap oil. However, every point was debunked right here PO.com before playing out as higher oil prices in the real world markets. Towards the end of that debate we started converting the price of oil in units of Yergins. One Yergin = $35. It is an inside joke that we like to bring up from time to time.

[emersonbiggins]

I really think it is $38, not $35. Won't matter before too long anyways.

[keehah]

Yergin before he was a shill (1979)

youtube

[Gandalf_the_White]

Yergin before he was a shill (1979) youtube

What did Sauron do to that boy to turn him? It's sad really. But maybe what we see in the comparison is that he likes to be part of the latest wave himself. He apparently was able to dump Hubbert and become cheerleader extraordinaire after 'The Prize.' But now that he has spent so many years eating navel lint he can't seem to get off that slow boat to Saudi Arabia (or the stagecoach to Alberta.) It would be better for his soul to vocally and abruptly move his position to the doom side of middle.

[Novus]

Yergin before he was a shill (1979) youtube

Unbelievable, he could have went down in history as a visionary but instead he sold his soul for fools' gold. Brought to you by the same people who paid doctors to claim cigarettes where healthy and paid climatetologists to dispute global warming are here with another form of shill: the PO denier.
Don't you just love Capitalism where anything can be had for a price including the truth as you see fit.

[lowem]

Yep, a Yergin unit is $38.

We're at $110.14 as of the past Friday's trading and that puts us at 2.90 Yergins, and less than $4 from 3 Yergins which would be $114. The next resistance level might be $120-125 so we'll be hitting that in the course of reaching that next level.

[Twilight]

Unbelievable, he could have went down in history as a visionary but instead he sold his soul for fools' gold.

On the contrary, it makes sense to me now. Yergin sold his soul for real gold. If he saw a post-2000 peak, he would have known he would not be around for long to bask in his belated recognition as a visionary. Nor would that status come with any great benefits, considering the likely cost of that journey would be to become a pariah for three decades - a whole life's work. Nor would a personal sacrifice even do any good, as he saw during the lack of change during the 1970s. And sacrifice is exactly what public advocacy entailed with the arrival of the Reagan administration. In all likelihood his career would have hit the buffers. Instead, there was enough time to enjoy the fruits of saying whatever was asked to be said. It was a smart move. Mercenary, yes, but how many of us have a problem with that? That is the advice we give to newcomers, isn't it, enjoy what you have while you have it?

I think I understand the man now. Essentially he made the same compromises people make when living under authoritarian rule. My only criticism is he did not keep his head down, he chose to become useful. That too is something I understand, but unlike the former, it is not something I look upon with sympathy.

[dinopello]

Yergin doesn't say anything incredibly stupid in today's Washington Post, but here he is being quoted again as if his opinion is worth something.

Prices might rise a wee bit

"This continues to be a crisis-prone market, and that is reflected in the oil price," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "The fundamental fact is that it's a tight market."

[DantesPeak]

I'm speechless. Mr. "oil is going back to $40" now says oil will reach $150. What's going on here???

Wall Street Journal
May 7, 2008


Some see oil at $150 a barrel this year
Crude rose $1.87 to $121.84 a barrel, a surge that is prompting analysts to forecast prices of over $150 a barrel.

A growing number of oil-market watchers say voters riled by soaring fuel costs may face far worse this summer, as factors ranging from unrest in Nigeria to slumping production in Russia could shove benchmark oil prices over $150 a barrel.

U.S. benchmark crude notched another record Tuesday, settling at $121.84 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Nymex crude oil so far this year is up 27% and is now 17% above its previous inflation-adjusted record in April 1980. It is up 96% from a year ago.

WHAT ANALYSTS THINK


A widely followed Goldman Sachs analyst predicted in a client note that oil prices could climb as high as $200 a barrel over the next two years, but said that where prices will top out still "remains a major uncertainty.''Oil's seemingly unstoppable surge has led some analysts to issue gloomier price outlooks. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which predicted the latest run-up, says the world may face a "super-spike" in which crude ranges from $150 to $200 a barrel as early as October, up from just over $120 now.

"That would put oil at unprecedented price levels, even going back to just after the Civil War," said Stephen Brown, an energy economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. A sustained price of $150 a barrel, he estimates, would shave around 1.8% percentage points off U.S. economic output in the first year, and a further 1.5% in the second year. The U.S. economy in the first quarter grew at an anemic 0.6% annual pace.

At the pump, $150 oil translates into gasoline prices of more than $4.50 a gallon.

"It's not that the genie is out of the bottle -- it's that 100 genies are out of the bottle," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Normally known for optimistic forecasts of lowering oil prices, Mr. Yergin's firm now says the price could rise to $150 a barrel this year.

The world's diminished spare production capacity remains the strongest single catalyst for high prices, Mr. Yergin says. The world's safety cushion -- the amount of readily available oil that could be pumped in a moment of crisis -- is now around two million barrels a day, according to most estimates. That's just 2.3% of daily demand, and nearly all of the safety cushion is in one country, Saudi Arabia. Everyone else is pretty much pumping all they can, which makes the world vulnerable to political or other shocks.

Moneyweb/WSJ

[Dreamtwister]

If the King of the cornucopians is calling for $150 in the future, it's time to bug out. Seriously.

[eastbay]

Well this changes things a bit, doesn't it!

Right now we're at about .81 Yergins instead of 3+ Yergins. He must be reading this website and decided to update his Yergins.

Smart move!

[roccman]

All that is left to do is laugh...

[americandream]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[americandream]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[copious.abundance]

Well, since Yergin's forecasts aren't too accurate, maybe this means oil will finally go down.

[Jack]

As Dreamtwister suggests, bugout time is nigh.

Rice started getting expensive, with some spot shortages. People started hoarding rice. All as predictable as night following day.

Now, as the Yergins of the world get on the peak oil bandwagon, what happens? The expectations shift. Whereas the consensus was that oil would go down, now it will begin its shift to an expectation of increase.

So - any user (or group of users, such as a nation) will begin to horde. After all, whatever price we pay today will be a pittance to what we will pay tomorrow. Plus, we may not be able to get any tomorrow.

Said hording will cause a price spike. Only it will look more like a parabolic curve; price predictions are pointless. This will result in irrational behavior by the politicians.

I wonder how people will react to $10 gas? I had thought it would be several years....

[mos6507]

I'm speechless. Mr. "oil is going back to $40" now says oil will reach $150. What's going on here???

You know, it was almost comforting to have the experts predicting a return to cheap(er) oil. You could cross your fingers and hope they were right even if the charts didn't support it. But now that they are coming around, it's hard to harbor any secret fantasies that our anxieties are premature or misplaced. That's getting scary.

[AirlinePilot]

THe Hamster Dance

[thylacine]

I finally found what I've been looking for for a while now: a comparison of an analyst's predictions with reality. So based on Yergin's performance so far this decade, we must be headed for oil at $300 a barrel or $30. image too big

the sad record of Daniel Yergin

I wonder how people will react to $10 gas?

Parts of Europe aren't too far off this and the roads are still full of cars. Year round gas tax holidays declared by President H Clinton in 2009?