Oil Price Soars above $145 per Barrel

Nobody, even OPEC can stop oil price from increasing. To date, oil is at above $145 per barrel. What comes next after this tremendous increase in oil price?

Prices might have raced even higher Thursday were it not for the sharp gain by the dollar against the euro. "The strength in crude oil is amazing given the price of the euro," said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com.

The slumping dollar has been a key driver pushing oil prices up by half this year. Many investors buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation when the greenback weakens, and a falling dollar makes oil less expensive to investors overseas. When the dollar strengthens, traders have less incentive to buy commodities.
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Despite Saudi Output Increase, Oil Price Still high

The Saudi Arabia government has already went along with the US government's request in increasing oil output with a vision of resoluting oil problems in the world oil market, yet the price of oil is still hitting higher and hingher, now at above $142 per barrel. Was the oil output hike not suffice to lower oil price? What was really the solution to this oil crisis?



At the Jeddah meeting, Saudi Arabia announced it would increase output by 200,000 barrels per day but that had been flagged beforehand and so it did little to cool the market.

Oil: Oil prices jumped to record high levels above $142 on Friday as the US currency weakened further and stock markets tumbled at the end of a rollercoaster week for investors.

New York light sweet crude struck a historic peak of $142.26 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude reached an all-time high of $142.13.
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Oil Industry: At Global Crisis

Oil peak will surely damage businesses and bring out detriments to all who depends on it. Oil price is a real shocker!


The historical upward trend in oil price has inflicted pains, headaches and economic worries on every consumers. After some decades have passed, since the conception of the oil industry in Middle East, cheap oil is a history. But what makes it unbearable today? Last year's oil price was only at $65 per barrel, today, it is more than a double, making it a new record of $165 per barrel and also expected to escalate at $200.


Pessimists believe that production has passed its peak. Optimists say it may be 20 years or so away – which would give us some time to prepare – but are now muted. Last week the hitherto optimistic International Energy Agency admitted that it may have overestimated future capacity. Chris Skrebowski, editor of 'Petroleum Review' and once an optimist himself, believes that the world is now in "the foothills of peak oil". Prices may ease a bit over the next few years, but then the real crunch will come. The price then? "Pick a number!"

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$200 A Barrel Is Possible, Oil Producers Say

Oil price is at above $135 per barrel in early trading today, which escalates tensions and fears over supplies. The price becomes double as last year's price. Meanwhile, oil producers predicted that oil price may end up $200 per barrel this year. how would OPEC react on this issue?

The US has repeatedly called for oil-producing countries to raise output to calm the market but producers blame speculators and the weakness of the dollar for high prices, rather than supply constraints.

Abdullah al-Badri, Opec secretary general, said the cartel saw no problems with the fundamentals of oil supply and demand. "Even if we increase output tomorrow, the prices will not come down."

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Oil Price Scaled At $130/Barrel

What could you expect from the trend in the global oil market? Everybody is expecting nothing aside from the continued increasing oil prices, despite effort to minimize its price. But those efforts seemed to be useless, as the oil price has surged to its peak.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies, but the White House threatened to veto the measure because it could spur "retaliatory action against American interests in those countries".

Energy analysts say an OPEC decision to raise output could help ease the price rally, which they say has been fueled largely by resilient world energy demand even as the United States economy slows.

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What's the reasons behind high oil price

As the oil price trend continue to affect the global market, everyone is trying to find out some means on how to counter and at least try for a new solution for the alarming high oil price. But, before doing so, one could probably check out what's the reason behind the increasing oil price.


On May 13, the price of a barrel of oil briefly hit a record of $126.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange The reason was ostensibly that Iran was cutting oil production. But there is no gas shortage. So why are prices still going up?

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Oil Price Fall May Not Last?

After weeks or even months of shocking oil price increase, oil price has slowly stepped down. Yet, there is still a threat that the current oil price may not last for good. Find out.

Crude oil prices were up over $117 a barrel on Monday morning amid supply concerns fueled by an attack on a Nigerian oil installation. The rise was tempered by a slightly stronger dollar; the dollar's weakness has pushed crude prices higher this year as investors look to commodities as a hedge against inflation.

As the summer driving season approaches, refiners need to recover how much they make per gallon in order to restore some capacity that they have idled, Lundberg said. Also, refiners overseas could be attracted to a higher U.S. gas price "and send over those extra barrels," increasing supply to meet the U.S. demand, she said.

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Energy Market Updates

Oil prices, energy trading, alternative energy updates....


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The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has no plans to hold an emergency meeting before a scheduled September gathering, they said.

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It is a new sunrise at the Reliance empire as the fuel to food conglomerate led by Mukesh Ambani moves into solar energy.

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There seems something surreal about the continuing rally in international prices of petroleum crude. In terms of fundamentals, stocks are ‘high’, supply quite ‘satisfactory’, and demand is actually ‘easing’. Yet crude oil prices keep going up and up and up. The sustained rally in oil quotes does call for a closer look at the role of speculation in hardening prices.
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The presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, and Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton have both called for a gas tax holiday this summer, eliminating the 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax during the time when Americans rekindle their passionate affair with the open road, from the end of May to Labour Day.
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BRITISH gas giant BG Group has made a $13 billion power play in the Australian market, launching an all-cash takeover bid for Origin Energy.
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Additional supplies would have to come from OPEC states because refineries in non-OPEC countries required enormous levels of investment to maintain current production, he wrote.

"In those countries much of the remaining oil in the ground in OPEC is run by National Oil Companies that have, by and large, been starved of investment capital by their own governments, for example Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran," Mr Sieminski wrote.

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OPEC will study all possible options, says UAE oil minister

Few days from now, on February 1 to be exact, OPEC countries will meet again to talk and settle problems on oil industry. One of the oil ministers expected already that the organization will discuss and further scrutinize all possible solutions to the present problem of oil industry.


But OPEC exporters, which have repeatedly said that the high oil prices were a result of speculation and geopolitics, appeared to dismiss his call.

OPEC is keeping a close eye on the market and stood ready to pump more when needed, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said in remarks published on Saturday.

Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Sunday that the oil market was well supplied and there was no need for the producer group to boost output at its Feb. 1 meeting.

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Iraq's Oil Minister expects higher output this year; lower oil price

Hussain al- Shahristani, Iraq's Oil Minister, is very much positive enough that the current year will bring higher output for their country. He is also expecting for a slightly lower oil price, perhaps, a range from $70 to $80 per barrel. Will his expectations be materialized?

Baghdad is pumping Kirkuk crude from its northern fields to Turkey at a rate of around 480,000 bpd, a shipping source said on Thursday. Pumping had stopped last week due to a power cut.

While some in the industry are skeptical Iraq can sustain a regular flow of oil exports from the north, the Iraqi minister expected improved security to allow higher supplies.

"Although the infrastructure has been neglected for decades...in the oil industry we have managed to protect our pipelines. It's the electricity grid that keeps on being attacked by the insurgents," he said.

"There is a much improved environment for the security. We expect this to improve and allow us to increase our production and exports."

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OPEC finds means to stop oil prices from soaring

Perhaps, there are means to cease oil prices from rising,aside from the US President suggestion of increasing output.This will be the focus of the members of the OPEC as they reiterated that the oil market is well supplied. What are these means that OPEC are trying to counter against oil problems?

The authors write that Saudi Arabia is "somewhat vulnerable to future global oil demand" and in the studies, Kuwait was an "extremely inconsistent and unstable" supplier. We note that using past production growth for Kuwait can be particularly volatile because of Iraqi actions in the nation in the early 90s.

- According to the EIA's latest Short Term Energy Outlook the oil market will remain tight throughout 2008. They forecast crude will average $87 per barrel during the year, an increase of $15 on their 2007 average. However, because of higher production capacity coming from OPEC and non-OPEC nations, the EIA sees prices falling $5 in 2009 as spare capacity reaches about 4 million barrels per day.

- The EIA also estimates regular gasoline will average $3.14 per gallon during 2008, up 33 cents from last year and 56 cents from 2006.

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US Prexy plans to increase domestic oil supply

Despite soaring prices and world rising demand for oil, President Bush has still plan of increasing its domestic oil supply on his country.

"What the president will do this year is continue to push Congress to work toward expanding domestic production here in the United States in environmentally sensitive ways," said White House press secretary Dana Perino at a regular news briefing.

"We have to figure out a way to increase supply here in the United States, done in environmentally sensitive ways, which we know how to do, so that we can have an increase of supply of oil here, while world demand continues to increase at a really astronomical pace for demand for oil," she said.

While the United States tries to transition its economy to one that can run on renewable and alternative fuels, that's going to take a long time.

So, "what we can look toward is ways that we can increase supply here in the United States," said Perino.

The press secretary made these remarks when asked about oil prices, which soared to 100 dollars a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever amid a view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will continue to outstrip supplies.

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Oil-rich countries are cutting exports due to domestic demand

It is said that oil-rich countries are using more energy for their own development, which causes cutting possible exports industry to some oil-needy countries. To this effect, as these countries are economically rising, this likewise poses threats to global oil markets.

“It is a very serious threat that a lot of major exporters that we count on today for international oil supply are no longer going to be net exporters any more in 5 to 10 years,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an oil analyst at Rice University.

Rising internal demand may offset 40 percent of the increase in Saudi oil production between now and 2010, while more than half the projected decline in Iranian exports will be caused by internal consumption, said a recent report by CIBC World Markets.

The report said “soaring internal rates of oil consumption” in Russia, in Mexico and in member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would reduce crude exports as much as 2.5 million barrels a day by the end of the decade.

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If Us attacks Iran, oil price would hit 200USD, Chavez says

During OPEC meeting, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to the current price od oil. He even described it as just and fair price. However, he announced that the oil price would be doubled (200 US dollar)if US would make any offensive act against Iran or even assail Venezuela. There were some hanging questions...Why? was there a gap among these countries?



"If the United States attempts the madness of invading Iran or attacking Venezuela again, the price of oil is probably going to reach $200, not just $100," Chavez said.

While Iran has been in a standoff with the U.S. over its nuclear program, left-wing Chavez is a bitter antagonist of President Bush.

"We are witnessing constant threats against Iran. I think OPEC should strengthen itself in this capacity and demand respect for the sovereignty of our nations, if the developed world wants a guaranteed supply of oil." It was the third full OPEC summit since the organization was created in 1960.

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