It’s not often that I am rendered speechless by news and events but this week has been exceptional in this respect. Almost every day has brought news that instead of the usual resigned grunt draw a different reaction involving raised eyebrows, momentary muteness and either a burst of laughter or a string of expletives. Yeah, I’m not a lady.
I saw that your OilPrice.com piece in Zerohedge a couple of days ago had over 70,000 views in the first couple of hours that it was posted. This piece would draw a crowd and likely garner some more subscribers. You are the best energy writer out there. Please keep it up!
Hey Irina. I almost had an "accident" when the news of that 60 mm bbl buy hit the wire. Like you say-you can't make this stuff up. And if you could still do "dumb blond" jokes, our Energy Sec'y would be a good starting point. But then our entire government is pretty much a wasteland at present. I am surprised the world doesn't sue us for being so stupid.
I don't normally use this but LOL! Lawsuits for stupidity do sound like a good idea but let's be realistic -- we don't have the resources to sue all the stupid ones.
Well heck. Just wait until all that free energy from renewables starts coming in. Then we will have limitless resources and can sue everybody. One thing we can agree on stupidity is a target rich environment. Keep up the good work.
I can see the gears grinding in Sec. Granholm's head. She hears about the EU's twisted logic and tries to one-up them with her own "Hold My Beer" strategy. You truly can't make this stuff up ...
I suspect what you will see in Europe with Russian oil is like what you have seen in Ukraine with gas since 2014. They pretend that they are not buying Russian gas but in practice continue to buy it by paying a middle man/third country at a mark up rather than buying it directly, even though the actual product comes from Russia and Russia continues to get paid. It's simply not possible for Europe - especially eastern and central Europe to replace Russian energy on even a medium to long term scenario.
This is exactly what annoys me. We will still be buying the same gas but at a higher price because, what, we must signal virtue and refuse to pay in roubles, while the big buyers are fine doing it? There's a saying down here, about being more Catholic than the Pope., meaning you're putting excessive effort into something that does not deserve it at all. That's exactly what Bulgaria is doing right now.
The President is releasing oil bought at a low price from the SPR at the same time his energy secretary is busy announcing plans to replace it with more expensive oil.
The President is also using the Defense Production Act to get new mining projects opened quickly while the EPA is shutting down mines that already exist as fast as possible.
The President wants to reduce American oil drilling over the long term and the Senate now wants to make sure we will never be able to import oil from OPEC ever again.
The world needs more people like you, so keep up the good work! As far as the "we will replenish the SPR with cheaper oil in the future" goes; that comment and analysis was based on the fact that the current forward structure for the entire commodity complex is at historically high levels of backwardation (that's the whole commodity complex, not just energy). For some reason, no one seems to have informed this government official that backwardation in the forward term structure (severe or not) does not in fact say anything about some "magical" market prediction of future lower prices for the underlying...that's finance 101, you really don't need to sit thru an advance course in financial derivatives to be presented with this well validated empirical and theoretical fact.
Exactly. Whatever the technical readings are now tells us nothing about where prices will be in six months, let alone a year. Tried and tested time and again.
"...similar to sheep being led to the slaughterhouse" this is how the BIden Admin. is destroying the country from within and out through ill-conceived policies impacting national security and national security energy.
The problem with slaughtering your sheep is that you can't fleece them after that. Therein lies the importance of long-term thinking, which does appear to be in short supply in some parts of the world.
Another reason for small Govt everywhere. They are simply incapable of doing the most basic things correctly. I keep challenging my friends to come up with any examples where Govt intervention hasn't led to dysfunctional outcomes and they can't. Your article highlights yet more incompetence. The only crumb of comfort for me in the UK is that it appears all western Govts are the same. Great article yet again.
Irina, you point out the stupidity in a funny and factual way. Great way to start a Friday morning.
Happy to set the Friday mood, Stu!
I saw that your OilPrice.com piece in Zerohedge a couple of days ago had over 70,000 views in the first couple of hours that it was posted. This piece would draw a crowd and likely garner some more subscribers. You are the best energy writer out there. Please keep it up!
Wow! Which piece was that? And thanks!
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-may-lose-energy-transition-race-it-really-begins
Its this one, but now the counter shows only 35,000 views. Maybe I remembered wrong, but it's still a pretty big audience.
It certainly is. Thanks!
Thank for the article I could use a good laugh at how stupid our politicians are.
We all can, definitely.
Hey Irina. I almost had an "accident" when the news of that 60 mm bbl buy hit the wire. Like you say-you can't make this stuff up. And if you could still do "dumb blond" jokes, our Energy Sec'y would be a good starting point. But then our entire government is pretty much a wasteland at present. I am surprised the world doesn't sue us for being so stupid.
I don't normally use this but LOL! Lawsuits for stupidity do sound like a good idea but let's be realistic -- we don't have the resources to sue all the stupid ones.
Well heck. Just wait until all that free energy from renewables starts coming in. Then we will have limitless resources and can sue everybody. One thing we can agree on stupidity is a target rich environment. Keep up the good work.
:D Thanks, Dave, I'll try.
I can see the gears grinding in Sec. Granholm's head. She hears about the EU's twisted logic and tries to one-up them with her own "Hold My Beer" strategy. You truly can't make this stuff up ...
Well, at least there's some entertainment value there, we've got to give them that.
I suspect what you will see in Europe with Russian oil is like what you have seen in Ukraine with gas since 2014. They pretend that they are not buying Russian gas but in practice continue to buy it by paying a middle man/third country at a mark up rather than buying it directly, even though the actual product comes from Russia and Russia continues to get paid. It's simply not possible for Europe - especially eastern and central Europe to replace Russian energy on even a medium to long term scenario.
This is exactly what annoys me. We will still be buying the same gas but at a higher price because, what, we must signal virtue and refuse to pay in roubles, while the big buyers are fine doing it? There's a saying down here, about being more Catholic than the Pope., meaning you're putting excessive effort into something that does not deserve it at all. That's exactly what Bulgaria is doing right now.
The President is releasing oil bought at a low price from the SPR at the same time his energy secretary is busy announcing plans to replace it with more expensive oil.
The President is also using the Defense Production Act to get new mining projects opened quickly while the EPA is shutting down mines that already exist as fast as possible.
The President wants to reduce American oil drilling over the long term and the Senate now wants to make sure we will never be able to import oil from OPEC ever again.
We are not a serious people.
Well summarised. It's painful to watch how they self-sabotage.
The world needs more people like you, so keep up the good work! As far as the "we will replenish the SPR with cheaper oil in the future" goes; that comment and analysis was based on the fact that the current forward structure for the entire commodity complex is at historically high levels of backwardation (that's the whole commodity complex, not just energy). For some reason, no one seems to have informed this government official that backwardation in the forward term structure (severe or not) does not in fact say anything about some "magical" market prediction of future lower prices for the underlying...that's finance 101, you really don't need to sit thru an advance course in financial derivatives to be presented with this well validated empirical and theoretical fact.
Exactly. Whatever the technical readings are now tells us nothing about where prices will be in six months, let alone a year. Tried and tested time and again.
"...similar to sheep being led to the slaughterhouse" this is how the BIden Admin. is destroying the country from within and out through ill-conceived policies impacting national security and national security energy.
The problem with slaughtering your sheep is that you can't fleece them after that. Therein lies the importance of long-term thinking, which does appear to be in short supply in some parts of the world.
Another reason for small Govt everywhere. They are simply incapable of doing the most basic things correctly. I keep challenging my friends to come up with any examples where Govt intervention hasn't led to dysfunctional outcomes and they can't. Your article highlights yet more incompetence. The only crumb of comfort for me in the UK is that it appears all western Govts are the same. Great article yet again.