Given the fury directed at BP in Congressional hearings on the Gulf oil spill, you’d think the time was ripe to cut the oil industry’s ridiculous subsidies–amounting to at least $40 billion per decade, according to a well-researched New York Times story over the July 4th weekend. But guess again. The oil industry has kept [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, June 17, 2010
Final Thoughts by Khan BP will have to evaluate long and hard as to whether Hayward’s strategy today–be evasive as possible for seemingly legal reasons–was worth the public excoriation that is starting to pile on. Hayward declined to answer most questions about what went wrong, citing a reluctance to speculate amidst "ongoing investigations". And when [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, June 17, 2010
Hayward: "Blow out preventers…across the world…not fail safe" Liveblog by Khan Hayward tells Rep. Barton that he thinks one of the biggest industry lessons going forward will be to make sure the blow out preventers on these wells are actually "fail safe". Right now, he admits, blow out preventers around the world, not just for [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 5, 2010
04-5-2010 by dugan Flash back to two years ago. Oil prices were nearing $120 a barrel and jamming up the price of food, gasoline, travel, almost everything we buy. In April 2008, energy analysts marveled, and worried, that the price of oil had doubled in only three years. Within a few months, oil prices [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, January 6, 2010
1-05-10 by dugan Supplies of oil and fuel in the U.S. are up, and so is the price of oil–it has surged to $82 dollar a barrel, pushing gasoline over $3.00 a gallon in California. Wait, isn’t price supposed to go down as supplies rise? This kind of speculator-driven disconnection of energy prices from [...]
Continue reading...Friday, October 16, 2009
10-16-09 by dugan Oil prices hit another record for the year today, at over $78 dollars for each 42-gallon barrel in futures markets. That’s well over double the late 2008 low of 32 dollars a barrel. Here are the reasons given in various news stories: Dropping dollar, threats to Nigerian oil fields, a jump [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, September 10, 2009
09-10-09 by dugan Who knew that investment giant Goldman Sachs was in the oil business? I’m picturing top execs earning their tens-of-millions bonuses in hard hats and oil-streaked yellow overalls. The news is part of an otherwise depressing Wall Street Journal story on how hard, and successfully, the financial industry is lobbying against regulations [...]
Continue reading...Friday, August 28, 2009
08-28-09 by dugan Did you hear the one about how the Bush administration used the wrong calculations last year when it declared that it wasn’t financial speculation causing the huge oil spike price? It’s one of many newsworthy punchlines of a strong new study that describes how government handed our energy markets over to [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, July 30, 2009
Oil Price Spike, As Exxon And Others’ Profit Skids, Shows Potential For New Economy-Killing Energy Roller Coaster, Says Consumer Watchdog Profit Reports Offer More Proof That Oil Prices Are Disconnected From Actual Petroleum CONTACT: Judy Dugan, July 30, 2009 Santa Monica, CA — On the same day that Exxon Mobil reported a second quarter profit [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, July 28, 2009
7-28-09 by dugan Last fall, the Bush administration said all that business with oil hitting $147 a barrel and gasoline at over $4.00 a gallon was just supply and demand at work. Today–big oops! The Obama administration, politely calling the report’s data "deeply flawed," said it will issue a revised report in September saying [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, July 21, 2009
7-21-09 by dugan Is it hot out? Well, so’s your gasoline. You’re losing a few cents a gallon each time you fill up at the pump. And no, with today’s insulated underground tanks, you can’t get cooler fuel in the morning. You just have to pay, while the dealer and oil companies reap [...]
Continue reading...Monday, July 13, 2009
7-13-09 by dugan Investment bank Goldman Sachs is about to report an eye-popping profit increase, leaving the rest of the economy in the dust. That should remind us of Goldman’s key role in the energy-price bubble that brought us $4.11 a gallon gasoline last summer, and brought Goldman a black-gold rush of profits. It’s a [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Gary Gensler made news today by repeating some earlier pledges to get speculative oil markets under control. He has to act soon. If oil prices can hit $70 a barrel in this economy, they'll shoot back up to $140 a barrel, with $4-a-gallon gasoline, at the slightest encouragement.
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Wednesday, July 7, 2010
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