FWIW:
Jeff D. Opdyke is an American financial writer and investment expert.
He spent 17 years covering personal finance and investing for The Wall Street Journal, worked as a trader and a hedge fund analyst, and has written 10 books on such topics as investing globally and personal finance.
UPDATE:
This piece above has gone viral, and was picked up for some further comment by Matt Randolph, aka “Mr Global”. Worthy extension to the discussion.
I will also repost below Jigar Shah’s recent commentary that supports Randolph, in that recent pleas from the White House for Oil Majors to increase drilling in the US were stonewalled.
Which probably was keying off this piece in Financial Times…
Chris Wright and Doug Burgum, secretaries of energy and the interior, held a call with leading oil and gas executives on Thursday and encouraged companies to increase production, according to people familiar with the discussion. The call came as industry figures warned Trump not to allow Iran to impose a toll on tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz as part of a future peace deal, arguing it would set a dangerous precedent for other countries.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that Burgum and Wright “had a very productive call with American oil and gas executives”. Rogers said that the call was intended “to thank them for their record-high production and discuss actions that the administration has implemented to eliminate unnecessary red tape and encourage even more drilling”.
Crude prices have surged since the war broke out, as Tehran has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which a fifth of the world’s crude and liquefied natural gas typically flows. Brent crude, the international marker, jumped from around $70 a barrel in late February to over $110 a barrel at the height of the conflict.
It has since receded to just under $100 a barrel as traders hope negotiations between Washington and Tehran will yield a lasting peace. But US petrol prices remain elevated, sitting at $4.09 a gallon on Thursday, up from $2.98 ahead of the conflict, driving up inflation as affordability has become a major issue for voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Bob McNally, founder of Rapidan Energy Group, said the White House talks on Thursday signalled that the US administration was under pressure over high oil prices and indicated that the conflict may continue.
“We can’t surge production; it’s not like a strategic petroleum reserve that you can suddenly release from a tank, that’s not how shale works,” he said. Producers are “reluctant to pay high prices for drilling rigs and drilling crews which, by the time they deploy those to the field and start working, the price could collapse by then”, he added.
Senior oil executives told the FT ahead of the call that the only way to solve the energy crisis rippling across the world is to reopen the strait.
They said any outcome that left control of the waterway in the hands of Iran could strengthen the regime, hurt industry and potentially embolden other governments including China to impose similar taxes on shipping.
UPDATE to UPDATE:
No one knows what the price of oil is going to do 6 months from now.
But what we do know is that the sociopaths who got us into this situation have seen their projections long blown apart.
Mr. Global (Matt Randolph) pointed out that the UAE going full capacity alone is not a threat, but this analyst is forecasting a scrambling race for all of the petrostates to max production is a different matter.
Randolph also describes how the US is pretty much past peak production, as Big Oil goes after easier plays around the world.
It is unfortunate and dangerous that greed drives important decision making. We’ve been repeatedly told by the brightest scientists to leave most of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground or risk frying the planet. In the face of declining demand, our response is to extract as much of it as possible. Fuck future generations!!!!
Capitalism has reached its peak in the USA where everything is for sale including, politicians and political parties. I fear that nothing will change (politically) as long as lobbyists can contribute more to a politician than do our votes. On the flip side, if consumers in the the market place decide to switch from fossil-fuel products to renewables, well, that’s something else entirely.