65 oil is coming (maybe)

[4dsc]

Believe it or don't...

If you're frustrated over the high cost of gasoline at the pump, don't trade in your Hummer for a Vespa just yet: A leading energy analyst is telling clients these days to prepare for crude oil to retreat back below $65 per barrel over the next three years.

How could it happen? He says conservation, new drilling, efficient new vehicles, alternative energy sources, a rising dollar and a global recession will combine to blast prices back to the Stone Age -- or at least to last year's levels.

"The match has struck, the fuse has been lit, and four or five years from now OPEC producers are going to be drinking their own oil and choking on it," says Tony Kolton, the founder and president of Logical Information Machines, a provider of research to most of the world's major energy-trading companies for two decades.



http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/CouldOilPlungeTo65ABarrel.aspx

[Turbineguy]

1. Probably right.

Getting rid of the Bush Adminitration will help too.

[madokie]

3. If that can be accomplished that is

I'm not so sure they will be able to walk away from the whitehouse and the power. Theres been too many admitted crimes for them to just hand over the keys and go home. Providing they do it will be the best thing to happen to our country in my sixty years of inhabiting it.

[Deja Q]

2. Isn't penile enlargement surgery less expensive than a Hummer?

:shrug:

[madokie]

5. what about the thrill factor

does that count for anything :shrug:

[glowing]

4. When you level the playing field with alt. energy and subsidize those

industries like the oil industries.. they will have to lower the price to stay competitive.. But as the alt. energy sources become more popular, they will be begging people to use it.

[n2doc]

6. Only if we have the will to continue when oil gets below 90

Many of those alternative energy sources can't compete economically with 65 dollar oil. So all this is predicated on people behaving altruistically, and I don't think that will happen.


Plus the drilling argument is bogus. The oil companies consider drilling to provide significant new resources only after about a decade from initial exploration. Ain't gonna happen in 3 years, even if we open up every last space on earth.

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. If gasoline prices go below $3 a gallon, Amerikans will

waste it just like they always have. It will take prices staying up around $4 for most to be willing to conserve and make other sacrifices.

[hendo]

9. Yup

Americans cannot be trusted with cheap gas. The oil companies shouldnt be the ones making money off it though. Maybe we could nationalize it and the government could make all of the profits that the oil companies have been making. Then we could all get tax cuts due to a large budget surplus.

[OwnedByFerrets]

12. I love that idea but I doubt it will ever happen.....

too many lobbyist paying too much to politicians.

[Fovea]

14. BING BING BING!!!

Give hendo a big ceegar!

And to be frank, China will by itself, if somehow Americans stopped using all internal combustion, and moved to all renewable electricity, exceed our current demand.

304,883,000 Americans, or 4.5 percent of the world's population.
1,325,563,000 Chinese, or just shy of 20% of the world's pop.
1,136,792,200 Indians, or 17% of the world's population.

Of these three nations, two of them have rapidly expanding economies, and have made up the bulk of recent demand increases.

Unless they find a way to turn water into oil, every new drop drilled will be a fraction of the oil deposits that are currently in decline.

So, yeah, I would not make a down payment on an RV anytime soon. But that doesnt mean that a few suckers won't listen to this jerk, like the poor fools who climbed on the Sub-Prime mortgage express to bankruptcy.

Buy a good bicycle, and a better lock.

[oldhippie]

20. Your logic in that paragraph .......

..... is just mind boggling.

[NickB79]

10. Anecdotally, my girlfriend, coworkers, and myself have already noticed more trucks and SUV's back

On the roads.

I've noticed that people are also starting to drive much more aggressively again now that gas is at $3.50/gal here (Twin Cities, MN). When gas was $4/gal, they drove more gently to conserve fuel.

I have no doubt that you are right.

[ElectricGrid]

11. I used to be against it but I think we should tax fuel

to keep it at 3.50+ Take all that revenue and spend it on alternative to oil research.

[Marrah_G]

17. That may be so, but until I have an alternative heat source I will welcome lower prices

And maybe even breathe again.

I'm not sure those who are excited by the high gas prices realize how hard it makes life for those of us who were just getting by. We are now barely able to tread water.

Yes I want to get off foreign oil, but I also need to heat my house, if I don't then the kids and the pipes freeze.

Gas, food, heat...these are the places the majority of my money and many who are like me's money goes. There is no disposable income. There is nothing left in savings to switch to a different form of heat.

We live day to day, just surviving, trying to give our kids a chance at a better life.

[DCKit]

8. Whew. I've been terrified for months we'd have to take some responsibility.

Glad to know everything will be back to normal soon. Until the next time someone decides to disrupt the market.

Republican may not = stupid, but I'm having a real hard time not branding the lot as unbelievably greedy and short-sighted - no imagination and very little self-restraint.

My Grandfather used to tell a story of a bartender he hired. Suddenly business was booming and my Grandfather, being a suspicious, greedy bastard himself, knew something was up and told the bartender he was going to get to the bottom of it. The bartender replied "Well of course I had to improve the business. How else could I steal more?"

Needless to say, both lived happily ever after.

[bhikkhu]

13. At $65, conservation and alternatives go back to the junkpile.

If anyone has been reading, the value of most alternatives are often stated as "when oil hits $100, this technology becomes feasible!", and the same goes for deepwater drilling and many technologies involved in conservation. If anyone recalls the difference between 1979 and 1980, everything can and has changed overnight before.

Myself, I'm riding a bicycle.

[Nederland]

15. Can you make that happen in the next two weeks please?

It would really help me out with a bet... :)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=266x1535

[Javaman]

16. Never ever happen.

It costs at least 80 bucks a barrel to make either the tar sands or shale to make money and when it's adjusted for inflation, we are talking at least 100 bucks a barrel.

combine that with the recent news that big oil had to invest more money into the tar sands fields to the current total of 9.3 billion, the price of oil per barrel will never get that low.

if it does, which I seriously doubt, there will be some major changes in the oil majors landscapes and in the political arenas.

[bhikkhu]

18. In other words, at $65 a barrel a big sector of production shuts down

...leading us back to scarcity and more volatility much faster than stable $140 a barrel oil would.

[Javaman]

19. basically, yes. nt

[ramapo]

21. That would be too bad

Cheaper oil means more oil burned, more pollution, more climate change, and more health problems. We will never learn.

[GliderGuider]

22. We will burn all the oil anyway

If the price went down to $65 we'd just try to burn it faster. If the price stayed low because of some previously unknown market force or government intervention, that would cause all kinds of problems -- mostly in the area of massive price volatility and a suppression of the move to alternatives.

Don't worry, it's not going to happen. If it did drop that far, the increase in demand would push the price back to where we are now in less than 6 months, and we'd be in the same place we started.