The forecast for the summer driving season: Hit the road early. Not to beat the traffic, but to beat the higher gas prices expected in mid-July.
Goldman Sachs' crystal ball is proclaiming that oil will soon soar to $135 a barrel, and likely have service stations jacking up fuel prices to $5 a gallon in New York just like the summer of 2008 that preceded the recession.
Indeed, analysts say Goldman and the other oil trading giant that also has the might to move prices, JPMorgan Chase, have already placed their energy bets for the summer. JPMorgan predicts oil hitting $130 a barrel in the coming weeks...[Full Article]
UK Telegraph Oil climbed above $125 a barrel on Friday after attacks on Libyan oil fields reignited worries about supply and inflation fears pushed gold to a new record high.
Brent crude was up more than $2 at a fresh two-and-a-half-year high of $125.05 in late afternoon trading in London. This is highest intraday level for front-month Brent crude since August 4, 2008, when the price hit $125.30.
Rising oil, metal and food prices have stoked inflation in economies around the globe and created concerns that it will damage the fragile economic recovery.
Inflation jitters and the weaker dollar saw investors buy gold and silver, which rose above $40 an ounce for the first time since 1980. Gold was up $13.30 at $1,471.47 an ounce...[Full Article]
Global oil prices rose sharply on Monday after the initial round of western bombing against Libya was met by Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi’s promise of a “long, drawn-out war”, which traders fear will keep the north African nation’s oil from the market.
Libya is one of the world’s largest oil exporters and a member of the Opec oil producers’ cartel. Production has already dropped to a trickle, down from a pre-crisis level of 1.58m barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency, the watchdog...[Full Article]
"Well, we're in Libya because of oil. And I think both Japan and the nuclear technology and Libya and this dependence that we have upon imported oil have both once again highlighted the need for the United States to have a renewable energy agenda going forward," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said on MSNBC...[Full Article / See the video]
Oil market speculators used the escalating conflict in Libya as an excuse to jack up crude prices to $106 per barrel today. Crude oil prices rose on news opposition forces and soldiers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi clashed near some of the country’s key energy infrastructure.
Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $2.25 to $106.67 a barrel by early afternoon in Europe. The price increase is the highest since September 2008, according to the Associated Press. In London, Brent crude for April delivery was up $1.80 to $117.77 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Asian stocks and currencies also fell on news of rising violence in the Middle East. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 1.1 percent to 137.83 as of 3:32 p.m. in Tokyo, led by a 1.8 percent drop in Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Oil prices were on a steady rise prior to the engineered revolutions in North Africa. Traders were convinced that demand for oil was set to rise by around 2 percent in 2011. Industry experts and Wall Street speculators predicted a gradual move to $120 and even $150 per barrel oil prices.
Gold and silver prices also spiked on Monday. Gold for April delivery was adding $15.80 to $1,444.40 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to The Street.
After rising 4.2% Friday, spot silver traded up a further 2% or 66 cents to $36.33 a troy ounce today, driven by higher oil prices due to political unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In December, Lindsey Williams predicted the price of oil would skyrocket to between $150 and $200 a barrel this year. Williams served as a pastor on the Alaskan pipeline and has insider sources within the oil industry.
On March 1, Williams told Alex Jones the uprisings in the Middle East are engineered by the global elite and will soon spread to Saudi Arabia.
Protests are planned in the oil kingdom and the government has promised to dispatch 10,000 troops to put down any dissent. The demonstrations were initially planned for Friday – the Muslim day of worship when demonstrations are traditionally held – but organizers of demonstrations have decided to take to the streets today, March 7, according to Forex News. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia announced it would not allow any demonstrations or sit-in protests in the country.
A member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, said on February 17 the kingdom may see protests unless King Abdullah introduces reforms, according to BBC Arabic TV. Abdullah announced plans to spend about 110 billion riyals ($29 billion) on programs aimed at boosting housing, education and social welfare.
In response to the prospect of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia and the growing conflict in Libya, Dubai’s shares retreated for a third day on Monday. “Investors are shunning assets in the region as the political turmoil, which started in Tunisia more than two months ago, expanded to Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Iran,” reports Bloomberg.
On Tuesday, March 1, the Tadawul, the largest stock market in the Arab world, plunged 6.78 per cent following the arrest of a prominent Shia cleric and the prospect of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia.
After the biggest one-week rise in oil prices in two years, weekly gas prices increased 6 percent according to the Department of Energy today. The national average is $3.38 per gallon, an increase of 19 cents over the previous week and 68 cents from the previous year. The average price in California is $3.72 per gallon, one of the most expensive gas states. With the least expensive gais is the Rocky Mountain region at $3.18 a gallon... [Full Article]
We're paying $3.77 a gallon for regular in San Diego, the most we've ever paid in February and 30 cents more than we did three years ago, when regular topped out in June at $4.63.
"It’s irritating because you just don’t know how to budget," said Marie Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the Auto Club of Southern California. "It’s financially devastating to a lot of people."... [Full Article]
SINGAPORE (AP) - Oil prices zoomed to nearly $102 a barrel Thursday in Asia as chaos in Libya disrupted crude supplies from the OPEC nation, and traders worried instability could spread to oil-rich countries in the Middle East.
Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $3.55 at $101.65 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract, which has soared about 20 percent since last week, jumped $2.68 to settle at $98.10 on Wednesday.
In London, Brent crude for April delivery vaulted $5.74 to $116.99 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's grip on power slipped further as rebels took control of much of the eastern part of the country and advanced around Tripoli, the capital. Two air force pilots parachuted out of their warplane and let it crash into the eastern Libyan desert rather than follow orders to bomb an opposition-held city.
The mayhem has disrupted crude exports from Libya, which produces about 1.6 million barrels of crude per day and has the biggest oil reserves in Africa...
U.S. oil prices look reassuringly calm till you look below the surface.
At first blush, a replay of the 2008 gas price spike seems far fetched. The biggest driver of U.S. gasoline prices is the cost of crude oil, and near-month oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange have sat out the scorching commodities rally. They lately fetched $85, some 40% below the crisis peak.
Food for unsettling thoughts
But that's where the good news ends for motorists -- and for a U.S. economy that is sputtering even with gas at $3.15 a gallon.
Much of the oil being made into gasoline now actually costs $105 a barrel. For this we can blame a few of the usual suspects – try Middle East unrest and strong overseas economic growth – and one new one, a weak link in the U.S. petroleum supply chain.
Those factors make the Nymex price "irrelevant for the price of U.S. gasoline," says Olivier Jacob, who runs the Petromatrix trading advice firm in Zug, Switzerland.
Even the government agrees. Last week it projected a 1-in-3 chance the gas price will break $3.50 this summer and a 1-in-10 chance it will hit $4. And if anything those estimates may understate how fragile the balance is.
"It would not take much" to send gas prices back to $4, says Jacob. Cold weather, Saudi reluctance to increase production and possible refinery outages could all play their part...
