<Shhhh! Maybe they won't notice . . . . . . The Oil Drum Econbrowser on Oil Shale>

85 comments on Dueling Editors

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

mw on September 28, 2005 - 4:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The market would settle for transparency. If indeed OPEC wanted to regain status as the market price setter, and what they claim about reserves is true, then all they'd have to do is open their kimono and show details and facts. Nothing more complicated than that.

But they haven't, and most likely won't, judging them by long-established past behaviour.

All we have to go on is raw total production, and the quality of the stuff, by which to judge their situation and claims, and coming out of the pipe is evidence to the contrary - heavier, sourer crude.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
JD on September 28, 2005 - 4:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The market would settle for transparency.
The market is going to settle for whatever the Saudis decide to give it. The market has no power to enforce transparency. You've got the power relationship backwards. The junky doesn't tell the dealer what to do; the dealer tells the junky what to do.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mw on September 28, 2005 - 12:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Failing transparency the world simply ends up being a more dangerous place.

I do believe there are those in power who would kill to find out exactly what the real scoop in Saudi Arabia is. The implications of a positive or negative answer are subtantial, affecting all of humanity.

At some point they will have to come clean in a transparent way or, I fear, they will do so at the point of someone's gun.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
TRE on September 28, 2005 - 12:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The idea that transparency is going to help us is utopian in my mind.  I'd love to know how you think transparency will lead to such a great outcome. Sometimes uncertainty can lead to better results.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mw on September 28, 2005 - 1:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Transparency tells you if you are royally #$&*#$ or not; transparency, if a crisis is looming a decade out and not tomorrow, gives us time to prepare and adapt.

Lack of transparency will be what kills us.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
GliderGuider on September 28, 2005 - 5:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Transparency is the only thing that would allow us to cross the Hirsch Gap. Without it, you can't tell where you are in the gap, so due to the inertia of human nature governments and consumers figure it's just Business As Usual until the tap runs dry.  "Hirsch Gap?  Whazzat - a new clothing store?"

Needing transparency and getting it are two different kettles of biodiesel, though.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
JD on September 28, 2005 - 8:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
At some point they will have to come clean in a transparent way or, I fear, they will do so at the point of someone's gun.

This is the unspoken subtext, isn't it. "Transparency" is a veiled threat. "We" have a right to know how much oil is there because it's our oil.

This is why the Saudi's are right to resist calls for transparency. Inspectors are the vanguard troops of invasion and appropriation, just like they were in Iraq.

As far as I'm concerned, Saudi oil belongs to the Saudis, and "our" dependence on it is our problem, not theirs. Personally, if I were them, I would have a contigency plan for destroying the infrastructure and poisoning the fields, just in case.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
TRE on September 29, 2005 - 12:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree with JD 100% on this.  I'm starting to get ill with all this talk of transparency.  It's imperialism.  Nothing more, the US saying "We've burned up all our stuff, you tell us how much you have.  Because we're too pathetic to plan ahead and we're addicted to the stuff."

I said here--or somewhere--long ago that I think peak oil needs geological/economic models to demonstrate, for example, how difficult it will be to use tar sands and shale oil to meet our energy needs.  And a better understanding of future production is also useful.  But many at peakoil.com, have argued that we have the right to pull those numbers out of Saudi Arabia.

Sorry folks.  These are more arguments from whining little children who have eaten their cookies and now are demanding that the other kids declare how many cookies they have.

Transparency is not going to help us.  The world will slam into the limits and will have to adapt.  Hirsch gaps and whiners-for-transparency be damned.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
isaiah on October 4, 2005 - 7:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
indeed!

and all the whiners about "those who endanger our children", should wake up and realize WE are endangering our children, and have been for decades (if not longer), with endless consumption of globally created corporate "goods" along with our addiction to cheap oil.  not to mention the adoption of unsustainable economic systems, such as debt financing/banking and fiat currency.  we (govt., multinational corporations, the unquestioning public) all share the blame in this, and to finger the "untransparent" ones is merely scapegoating.  

Peak Oil seems to be a convienent excuse for imperialistic tendencies...subtle or not.  

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mw on September 28, 2005 - 2:18pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hey, by the way... over the weekend there was post after post after post whining about potential market manipulation, by the government, of energy prices.

I note that when prices are rising, no one whines.

What gives ;-)

If the government is a real force in energy prices via actual trading in open markets, I will eat my hat.

** Disclaimer, I own no hats.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
louGrinzo on September 28, 2005 - 6:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
While I don't subscribe to the idea that the gov't is manipulating markets, I believe the charges were that they're doing it, not that they're actually any good at it.

That was meant to be a joke, but I'm not so sure now...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
mw on September 28, 2005 - 8:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I run into conspiracy theories in the trading biz all the time, and discount them all the time. The government has much more effective tools at its disposal if it wants to drive price around... many don't cost a dime, in the short term.

That was some short squeeze today...

http://www.trendvue.com/charts/2005/09/tv20050928-16.gif

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Adam on September 29, 2005 - 12:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We already know the government is manipulating prices, but not through a conspiracy in the options markets. It's been selling real, physical oil from the SPR. Bush even said on TV that they would release more crude to any refineries that want it. That's a pretty good way to drive the price down, and it's completely transparent. But it clearly isn't enough, so other governemnts are selling gasoline from their reserves.

After Katrina, I thought this was a good idea: The SPR is designed to help recover from short-term disruptions, and if they sold at the post-Katrina price, they might even make a profit. But after seeing another devasting Cat 5 hurricane within a month, I'm not so sure. Unless they replenish the SPR between hurricane seasons, it'll rapidly be depleted.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

85 comments on Dueling Editors

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version