BigBoyBC says:

I seem to remember that oil prices started to slip just after Bush retracted the Presidential ban on offshore drilling and Congress started talking about the Congressional ban, couple that with the American people shouting “Drill, drill, drill..” I think this caused the spectulators to take flight and then we really started seeing the price fall.

I sure the “Greenies” are having fits over the price of gas under $2/gal. They seem to think the only way to get people to go green is to jack-up prices. I say wrong, make green tech cheaper…

James Hill says:

The oil crash was easy to spot, considering demand leveled off at $140/bbl and nose dived after $160/bbl. While we won’t get down to the historical average of $25/bbl, I don’t think it will go far past the Saudi goal of $75/bbl.

Sorry hacks, this has nothing to do with politics, and is only indirectly linked to our recession.

Quite frankly, we should be rooting for $75/bbl. We don’t need the ExxonMobil’s of the world asking for a bailout, too.

soundwash says:

..some random thoughts..

hmm…

oil was manipulated high then crashed to:

-foster more support for the global carbon tax/cap and trade scam.

-to re-bankrupt the oil states in south america
(esp venezuela) that just finally payed off their debts and stall their efforts to create their own oil cartel. -as well as slow progress with its oil for arms trades with china and arms purchases with oil dollars with russia.. (this kind of applies to all the oil states below the equator)

to try and create civil unrest and bankrupt Iran and slow progress of the The Iranian Oil Bourse
(iran has to import petrol products because it severely lacks enough refinery infrastructure to produce its needs.) -this was a “Plan B” of sorts
when the false flag Ops failed to produce a war
between USA and Iran..though i do not think it was our idea..(bankrupcy))

-to fund some covert fun

-to make bank on shorting oil when it was announced
in july that is was going to $50/bbl

-so those with storage capacity can stock up on oil
before the dollar collapses.

(the only reason the dollar even still has value
at this point is because King Paulson, JP, GS, IMF & Co. has leveraged the bailout money (amongst others) to literally rally the market up and down in parallel to scripted news leaks and buy/bail outs. -as well as keeping disconnected, the gold/silver market from all logic, reason and prior history.

–anyway, i could list plenty more, but whats the use. you can google up most of the information yourself.. use Ixquick.com’s search to yield “different” results…google is showing signs of political influence. -hope i’m just being delusional.

-s

ArianeB says:

#4 has it exactly right. The credit crunch is stifling would be buyers, and sellers need the money.

Hence more sellers than buyers, and hence a price drop.

But this is a temporary deal. Oil production has been at a stand still for over 3 years now and the market has been showing signs of volatility for the past two.

FuDub says:

$1.459 in Roanoke, VA (for what it’s worth)

Ah_Yea says:

Where’s the higher oil prices?
Right beside Global Warming.

bobbo says:

I also have a “tangential issue.”

With pools of oil under the ground for millions of years, and with microbes that feed on oil (they have been identified and groomed to clean up oil fouled beaches) how come some such microbe hasn’t gotten into the oil fields and turned them into grey goo or whatever the breakdown of consumption would be?

All that “energy” just sitting there for millions of years? Darwin is letting us down.

brendal says:

JCD is a Costco-er!! HAR!

MikeN says:

Don’t worry liberals, Obama will push oil prices back up. He said he prefers a gradual increase, so you can all be happy that poor people won’t be driving any big comfortable cars

Uncle Patso says:

Most microbes can’t survive the high temperatures at the depths at which petroleum is found. The stuff comes out of the ground HOT! That’s why so much of the Alaskan Oil Pipeline had to be built above ground and with cooling for the supports — so the hot oil wouldn’t melt the permafrost.

I don’t expect the current price levels to last much beyond this month or next. Once people start driving like it’s 1999 again, demand will shoot up again, as will the price.

We could have avoided some of this pain and uncertainty, or at least eased it a bit, if Clinton had been able to pass his “BTU tax” back in the day. It might even have lessened the trade deficit we have with China and so many others. Even with the cheap oil of the time, it has always amazed me that it was cheaper to make shoes in Asia and ship them five or ten THOUSAND MILES than to make them here.