n other storm-related moves:


Administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Bush seemed likely to authorize a loan of some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But details remained in flux and no decision was imminent, they said.

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/29/katrina.washington.ap/index.html]http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/29/katrina.washington.ap/index.html[/ url]


anyone else got anything on this ?

I was talking with a co-worker this morning and said this is exactly what the President should do, however, he's not trying to win anymore votes, so it probably won't happen.

I basiclly read the same thing in Yahoo news. I think we all need to remember this is not to keep the prices down. It is only to make sure we do not run out of oil. If those rigs are badly damaged out in the Gulf then we could have a very bad gas shortage. This will be a very interesting time for our economy...I hope we have enough in the reserves. Also, we need to start drill up North in Alaska where the environmentalists say No. I say screw the little endangered bird or whatever we are trying to save and get our rigs up there ASAP.

Why should the president release oil in the strategic reserve?

22.45 billion bbl (1 January 2002) Straight from the CIA. Consider Iraq and Saudi have 10 times as much.

The US consumes about 7.2 billion barrels of oil per year, give or take ten or so million. This should keep us self suficient for about 3 whole years.

What happens if the reserves have been opened for a while and there is an opec embargo against the US?

This is a bit silly really.

Oil price has dropped to just below $70 per barrel on the back of this news and yet that only shows that much of the oil price hikes recently have been because of a lack of confidence.

Let me explain.

The Strategic Oil Reserve (SOR) is crude oil.

The biggest problems right now are caused because of a lack of world and US regional refining capability.

Katrina did hit oil production (drilling) in the Gulf but the biggest hit was to refining.

And let's not forget we're only half way through the hurricane season so expect more scares and damage.

Releasing crude onto the market by tapping the SOR does not put more refined fuel on the market.

It's nothing but a confidence booster.

My view ?

Expect fuel prices to continue to rise.

And look warily at any new tropical storms developing that might disrupt production and refining.

yeah if you watch the reports over the last few days you should feel happy that "oil plunges from record" or "oil falls after skyrocketing" etc. How much did it fall really? Normally $0.50 to $2 at most. Most of the time it goes right back up to the 69 range ($68.52 right now). Even before the announcement of the SPR release it never really held above $70 for long.

The media seems to be a bit focused on the $69-$70 Oil when they're ignoring the recent high of $2.90 gasoline on NYMEX. (Which finally fell back to around $2.20 but is back up to $2.30 as of right now)