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...Thursday, September 3, 2009
9-3-09 by dugan If an oil giant finds a "giant" oil discovery, do oil prices respond with a sharp drop? Nope, because oil prices aren’t following anything except the stock market. BP trumpeted a big find in the Gulf of Mexico this week, and oil markets responded by staying about as flat as [...]
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...Friday, August 21, 2009
08-22-09 by dugan If a few slightly cheerful sentences from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke can spike the price of oil to a record for the year, the economy is in serious trouble. There’s no real-world reason for a barrel of oil to cost $75, and every buck of increase in oil means renewed pain [...]
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...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.
Continue reading...Monday, June 22, 2009
6-22-09 Nothing changed in the real world today–economy still shrinking, gasoline consumption near 10-year lows. But speculators who doubled the price of crude oil and sent prices at the pump shooting up got some kind of extraterrestrial message today. The price of crude oil dropped about $2.50 a barrel, to around $67, and gasoline started [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, June 9, 2009
06-09-09 by dugan Oil prices hitting close to $70 a barrel today are a speculator’s paradise. Their party, of course, is being paid for by consumers at the pump and struggling businesses. Gasoline is averaging $2.62 a gallon nationally and California is within a dime of $3.00 at the pump. Haven’t we been here before? [...]
Continue reading...Friday, May 22, 2009
‘Optimism’ Is Driving Energy Prices, Consumers Will Suffer The Memorial Day Hangover, Says Consumer Watchdog Oil, Gas Prices Rising Again At Record Clip For Holiday, Despite Oversupply, Low Demand, Says Group Washington, D.C. — The price of regular gasoline at the pump has shot up 30 cents a gallon nationally in the last month and [...]
Continue reading...Friday, January 30, 2009
Energy Prices That Deepened Recession Drive Exxon, Chevron to Yearly Profit Records, Says Watchdog Oil Giants Cling to Cash Hoards and Trim Output, Setting Trigger for Next Price Spike Santa Monica, CA — Consumers left deeper in debt by 2008’s record price gyrations for gasoline and heating oil now find that their money landed in [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, January 29, 2009
Shell Oil: Is It Profit or Loss? Paper Losses Blur Hard-Cash Record Profits in Industry Oil Production and Gasoline Refining Cuts Increase Odds of Future Price Spikes, Says Watchdog Santa Monica, CA — Shell’s 4th quarter loss of $2.8 billion, based on the lower value of its oil inventory, turns into a $4.8 billion quarterly [...]
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
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