Friday June 17, 2005

Oil balance scale swinging negative

energybulletin.net -> theoildrum.blogspot.com

As the picture is starting to develop for global oil supplies this winter many of the discussions seems to focus on the overall size of the demand/supply levels. And when you are talking about numbers on the order of 85 mbd a variation of 100,000 bd is not a very large number. Thus the seeming risks of small changes in production are not evident.

However if we focus more narrowly on the likely difference in range between available supply and overall demand, then the range between potential oversupply and shortage is somewhere in the region of 1 mbd or less ... a hundred thousand barrels here, a hundred thousand there. Pretty soon it adds up to a real shortage.

For while the major members that can increase oil production in OPEC are doing so, their number is small and some cannot increase at all, and others are declining. In this context, the recent announcement from Iraq is the most troubling ...

(2005-06-17 12:53:22 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Singapore petrol price war

In the midst of crude prices going up even as OPEC lifted production quotas, counter-intuitively, Singapore seems to be having a petrol price war going on.

todayonline.com :

The battle began at the start of the week when Shell raised its discount from 10 per cent to 13 per cent. The other companies quickly responded, and yesterday, much to motorists' delight, the price war reached fever pitch.

Determined to stay ahead, Shell upped its rebate three times during the day, from 14 per cent to 17 per cent, then to 20 per cent, and at 5pm, to 23 per cent. Yesterday evening, the other petrol companies — Caltex, SPC and ExxonMobil — were all offering 23 per cent discounts. But late last night, following a further hike by Caltex, Shell again raised its discount, also to 26 per cent.

Can these heavy discounts be sustained? ... the Shell spokesperson conceded that they are "not sustainable in the long-run with rising oil prices" ...

(2005-06-17 12:53:02 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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