Oli is now at $101.56 a barrel

The death of OPEC

Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday. It said it would not honor the cartel's production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran.

As the world's largest crude exporter, the kingdom in the desert took its ball and went home.

As the Saudis left the building the message was shockingly clear. According to The New York Times, “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,” a senior OPEC delegate said. “We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil."
The death of OPEC - Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money

 

give it a few days it will be over $110

 

In a year or two we will know for sure whether this is a good thing or not. Until then I would hold off on the celebrations.

 

Looks like Bush is trying all he can to get the repubs re-elected.

Seems there was more than meets the eye at that meeting a while back.

It will not be a good thing without OPEC, I predict oil prices would be much higher without them.

 

You really need to read the whole article, with-out OPEC there would be no collusion happing like it does now.

Right now you have group that meets and says okay I need to build a new ski resort in the desert , so let cut production back so that prices will raise per barrel...

 

lol, when ike rips apart the oil rigs and refinerys...is it opec that causing the collusion,or the spectators? cuz,prices have been on the rise since 7 days ago when ike was in the carribean

its a rhetorical question

 

You are implying that collusion is always a bad thing.

Oil prices have always been low historically. I see no reason why OPEC is to take blame considering the actual world market share they have.

Though they do provide the majority of the oil sold on the world market, local suppliers actually provide the majority of the world's oil supply, not OPEC.

The less significant OPEC has become, the higher the oil prices have went and the less stable they have become. One can look at the natural gas market as an example.

 

Personally OPEC or no OPEC the prices will rise, end of story.

 

Not really, OPEC supplies the majority of the oil that is sold on the world market. This makes domstic suppliers uneasy as they can not drive or force prices up due to the readily available oil from these sources.

It would be in the best interest of domestic suppliers to see a weakened OPEC as then it would give them the ability and power to be more in control of prices through artificial supply and demand.

 

Saudis aren't quitting OPEC. They just can't agree on policy. Iran and Venezuela want to align with Russia, and use high oil prices as a weapon against the United States.

Saudi Arabia only has one resource, and they want stable prices. If they push the price too high, our economies go into recession. We buy smaller cars, we produce more of our own oil, and the market will eventually crash.

 

We need a Western Hemisphere oil cartel (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Venezuala (post- Chavez), Brazil)........

Take care of OUR needs....then put the rest on the open market.

We could do it with oil shale, offshore, ANWR, north slope, and coal gassification. With oil shale ALONE at 3X the reserves of Saudi Arabia....The sky's the limit.

Maybe more competition with more than one oil cartel (OPEC) in existence would be a good thing, ay?

 

Well, there are laws in America against cartels.

I would think you would have learned from the Ford administration; you can not dictate to companies who gets the oil. It will be sold on the world market.

I do not think our companies could even handle a monopoly/collusion/cartel, I think they would implode having so much power, I would not even trust our own companies, I will trust the foreign state owned oil first. The reason is they at least are intertwined with their government, infrastructure and way of life in their nation and must introduce some sort of stability for it. That stability comes through the money oil brings in.

Companies in my opinion will just look to milk the consumer as much as possible in the pursuit of profits, that the powers to be will drive the company under just to acheive those profits. Of course it will be the consumer that will suffer.

Thats why it is my beleif that OPEC provides a great balance to domestic companies interests and power. I like having OPEC around.

You see the extraction costs for shale? It sure is not profitable at $100 a barrel. I read a couple of years ago it was not even touchable unless oil was up near $156. Do not remember details, it was a few years ago so tech could have improved, but it is common sense to assume that oil would have to be way above $100 for shale to be profitable as it is an expensive process.

 

Maybe we need to stat a wheat and corn cartel and starve the *******s.

 

We would starve as well.

 

IMO cartels are a bad thing. Manipulating supply totally undermines supply and demand. If there was no cartel, there would be more competition for market share.

I applaud the Saudis for not sticking to the production quotas. At least a country in that region is tired of countries like Iran and Venezuala constantly acting up.

Mike