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Old 06-09-2004, 12:50 AM   #8
jaguar
whig
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 5,075
Quote:
Eh, not really. Thank OPEC and the refiners.
This has little to do with OPEC if you actually look at the situation. OPEC are already well over their production target and everyone aside from Saudi is running at close to or at maximum capacity, the problem is a combination of massive increased demand by particularly China and oil speculators running wild as free. There are shorter term issues of refineries being close to capacity and (this is partly a factor of the previous situation) little things going wrong affecting output because there is simply no slack in the system.

Build yourself an understanding of oil futures and you'll see what's going on, estimates of the terrorpremium that's being run by these guys runs from $5-8pb. To dumb it down a fair bit (lets face it, when you're buying a few million barrels of oil for a week, there are a fair few things going through your mind, commodity futures is a funny game.) people are trading on whether there will be attack on Saudi oil infrastructure.

My personal feeling is that this is less likely than the hysteria makes out and the pattern of recent hit and run attacks bears this out in my opinion but that doesn't stop the trading. Terrorists realized that the markets are by their very nature, utterly spineless and risk adverse, fucking them up is dead easy compared to national moral.

edit: Can you tell it's pre-morning-coffee time? Hysteria with an I.
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Last edited by jaguar; 06-09-2004 at 01:17 AM.
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