This Week In Petroleum Crude Oil

I know you want to know! :)

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil."
-- Rupert Murdoch explaining why all but one of his newspapers would unequivocally support the Iraq war.

Oil is sitting at $40/barrel.

However, looking at the pretty graphs here it would seem it's not doomsday just yet... *sigh* .... seems my predictions of imminent global economic meltdown were a little over enthusiastic.

Prices are still $10/barrel above this time last year and OPEC has officially decided to cut production to stabilize the market a bit. They're only cutting it by 1.7m barrels a day which is relatively little, and they'll only start doing that in Feb so as not to give the market the heebie jeebies...

So no Oil Crunch just yet. Though that link is to copies of two columns by Paul Krugman, editor of the NY Times, so at least I'm in good company. Reading his articles, the theory of oil crunch still sounds solid but it hasn't hit yet.

The real concern regarding oil is not the war but rising Asian and specifically Chinese consumption which is a long term, gradual kind of thing. The West will eventually have to start treating oil like a limited resource (GASP!) as the rest of the world starts asking for their share (and has the money to pay). Sooner or later that is going to mean cutting back on the absurd wastes of energy we take for granted.

Anyway, for now it's just something to scare the children with:

Keep driving your car like that and the oil-driven recession will get you!

or maybe

Finish that tank of petrol young man. There's unemployed children in China whose factory would really like your crude oil! Maybe we should put your left overs in an envelope and send them to China?

Okay, geeky, I know. I'll stop now.

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