Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras
stateimpact.npr.org
stateimpact.npr.org
Edit: Article on one page: http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/73558-the-oil-h...
I work at a newspaper that is a controlled by a corporate office across the country. (They know best) I also live in a small town that has been slow to adopt technology.
I'd imagine it looks a lot like WPEngine but with a more newsy flair.
Another possible solution would be to crowd source the data gathering. Maybe a news link aggregator with strict organization.
It can still feasibly be used by those who own the oil stock itself. It's not the inherent cost that is increasing only the market price. As the price rises the market should work to ensure that every last drop of oil is bled from the Earth. If the price goes to high then [in a perfect market] it will drop back to ensure maximum exploitation.
It's only a falling price below the production cost that makes it infeasible to extract surely?
"Oil prices being so high that oil cannot be used economically for anything" vs. "Actually running out of oil" would have the same consequences on modern society.
It's better to scare the public with peak oil stories, than actually doing the research and finding out some people are getting rich, and not adding any value to the system in any way.
Does this assume that the only way to move people on from oil dependency is financial. That's largely true I guess.
If not this then what other assumptions/ projections/predictions lead to this conclusion.
Does making scarce things too expensive to buy always constitute "adding value"?
Take, for example, water. Water needs to be expensive because people are using it waste fully because it's cheap. You could have water traders bid up the price of water. Or you could have the government tell people to stop using so much water. I'd personally prefer the government to tell LA and Phoenix they all need to move somewhere that it rains, but that's not going to happen. And I'd rather not see Goldman get rich while people die of thirst. So we'll just run out of water instead. People in Arizona will use it to water their fucking lawns until it runs out.
You could ration it - allow people to sell their ration and reward water conservation; or provide a free allowance with an increasing charge for additional volume. Simply making water the same amount of expensive per litre isn't right IMO. Water should be treated differently as it's such a necessity for life.
If someone is already getting that information out by flying a helicopter over my installation, I would be tempted to either a) arbitrage the situation by selling the information myself, or b) erect some tents over the tanks if it's really worth keeping it secret.
"Goldman Sachs (GS) predicts that by 2017 the U.S. will be the world’s biggest oil producer."
How accurate is this statement? Is the reason the gasoline prices here are so high ($3.89 here this weekend) is because we don't have enough refineries to convert oil into gas?
*edited for grammar.
On the pricing, I'm speculating a bit but I don't think the refineries issue is that major an issue for gas pricing. If you remember, during Hurricane Katrina, a number of refineries were shut down or damaged and prices did bump up a bit, but not dramatically so. I think the biggest factor is there's a lot more demand for oil on the world market. We typically hear about the growing number of cars in China and India as people's income rises and car costs drop but the same is happening all over the world. This week the BBC had a good article on the 180km traffic jams in Sao Paulo, Brazil. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19660765.
Oil is a global commodity and is fairly mobile so a demand increase in one part of the world raises prices everywhere. A sustained increase in demand all over the world raises prices a lot more.
How true it is, and how well US has kept to that I do not know, but it does speak of a degree of control and strategy one does not normally associate with governments.
If it's a smackdown between a n other us administration and the whole oil industry I would not bet on the politicians needeing reelection
Also, looking back at the original article, I really wonder whether there's any production or efficiency benefit to what these 3rd party companies are doing to monitor levels. I kind of have the impression that they're feeding the real time demand of commodity markets and traders. Maybe there's something with pricing efficiency, but does that really make a difference outside of the commodity markets?
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/12/delta-oil-refinery...
Or drill for it.
The cost of oil has gone through the roof, even compared to the 80's oil crisis where the middle east shut-off gas to the US.
[edit] Removed some comments that referenced a different comment that I thought was the parent to this comment.
Gasoline prices are high because of speculators, lack of refineries, and having multiple gas formulas for different regions of the US.
"There were 12 distinct gasoline blends in use in the United States during the summer of 2004: 11 special gasoline blends and the conventional gasoline used everywhere a special blend is not used. When different grades of gasoline, special blends used in winter, and other factors are considered, the number of gasoline blends rises to at least 45. New ozone standards and other factors may further increase the number or the use of special gasoline blends in the future, in part because EPA must approve any state’s application to require use of a special gasoline blend as long as the proposed fuel meets EPA’s environmental standards."
and a pdf map from Exxon: http://www.exxon.com/USA-English/GFM/Files/US_Gasoline_Map.p...
it seems to be a little... dramatic for my tastes, but it is AP
The oil/gold ratio (two hard commodities) has oscillated between 8 and 20 barrels / gold ounce for 30 years - with occasional spikes up or down.
It's not the oil price that has risen - it's the bits of paper in your wallet that have fallen. Since 2000, the US money supply has increased from about $600 billion to about $2.6 trillion. That is a 300% increase in the amount of USD around - it's little wonder that a barrel of oil has tripled in value as well over the same period for that same currency.
The truth is that gas prices, adjusted for inflation, are about the same as they were 30 years ago. It's just a shame that most people can't adjust their income to inflation easily, and so see their gasoline bill eating up more of their disposable income than they would like.
So next time you shake your fist at the oil companies for gouging you, remember to shake the other fist at the Federal Reserve for devaluing your currency. They've both conspired in the ever-increasing prices.
Floating exchange rates tend to cancel out quantitative differences between currencies, so in fact some of the price rise you see is "real".
Gold is not a sensible measure of value because gold is not a currency. It is a metal with multiple competing uses, only one of which is as a store of value.
The only difference is the degree to which the currency has been devalued. Swiss Franc - not so much until recently (in repsonse to Euro devaluation). Argentinian Peso - lots.
This is not really an argument - all Central banks have inflation as one of their core aims - it's just a matter of degree how much inflation they have created. We are in an era of competitive currency devaluations when even the Swiss are getting in on the act.
The USD is different because it acts as the world reserve currency, and the one in which oil is priced. It used to have a quasi-link to gold until Nixon closed the Gold window, which, unsurprisingly dropped the value.
>Gold is not a sensible measure of value because gold is not a currency. It is a metal with multiple competing uses, only one of which is as a store of value.
It's more sensible than paper money as a store of value over the long term. The mean failure rate for paper currencies is 100% - it's just a matter of measuring the longevity.
But you don't have to use Gold to compare. You can compare oil to any number of commodities (wheat, copper, cotton) and you'll see that historically they trade in a range, which is consistent with oil note becoming more expensive particularly faster than anything else.
Central banks vary wildly in their policies and work differently. Generalising from the Federal Reserve to other banks is troublesome.
For example, the Fed is very secretive compared to some banks. An enormous amount of effort is spent second-guessing it and it is nigh impossible to guess what it's going to do.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the Reserve Bank publishes its minutes, the Governor of the RBA makes regular speeches about monetary policy and its single policy objective (to keep underlying inflation in a 2-3% band) is widely understood and has never been deviated from. Markets and economists predict its next move correctly about 80% of the time.
Similarly, the Bundesbank and through their influence the ECB has well understood targets for monetary and fiscal policy; they've used monetary policy levers to affect the mix of taxation, spending and borrowing in the direction of financial rectitude. I don't think that's the right way to go about it, but everyone knows what they want and how they intend to do it. Super Mario's announcement of unlimited bond purchases is the first time the Bundesbank has been sidelined.
The USD is not the only reserve currency -- most central banks hold a mix of special drawing rights, USD, EUR, other currencies and yes, some still hold a bit of gold. You don't hedge risk through putting everything in the gold basket and betting on fluctuations in demand and supply that have no relationship to the general economy. You spread your risk onto multiple currencies.
Anyhow, it seems like we agree that the price of oil is rising. It's just that you see it as due entirely to the massive increase in the USD supply in past years; I'm saying that some of it is related to basic supply/demand as well and we can see this by examining its movement in other currencies.
Not really. It's not entirely due to the increase of USD, there are demand/supply characteristics that have created a mild inflation in the price (note the cost of extraction affects only profits, not price).
However, the popular view is that the oil price is rising massively due to (a) greedy oil companies or (b) oil running out. Neither is really the case, and historically the oil price isn't significantly different to the band it has been in for the last 30 years. The data used for showing that the oil price is rising is by comparing it to the price ~10 years ago to now. But that is obscured by the fact that currency devaluation in that time period accounts for a large percentage of the sticker price rise. The real price rise is far less.
http://research.tdwaterhouse.ca/research/public/Markets/Comm...
The weekly status report has a section on refinery utilization:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_sndw_a_(na)_yup_pct_w.ht...
I don't really follow that chart so I've no idea what the normal ranges are but it suggests that the current 85-90% utilization is not some kind of upper limit (e.g., for safety or process reasons), so there is actually spare capacity.
Arbitrage is valid, as is doing your research, inferring what's going on with a company and then trading on your assumption.
Insiders are barred from influencing the market with their knowledge, but outsiders who infer what they think is going on, whether it's a sure thing or not, are perfectly fine.