This from USA Today (1/19) with another take on the oil situation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FAIR USE: For Education and Discussion purposes only!

>>>Page 1B

Get ready to pay more at pump OPEC squeezes crude oil prices to 9-year high By Sara Nathan USA TODAY

Oil prices jumped to a nine-year high Tuesday on reports that major producers will not expand supplies and as a cold snap in the Northeast increased demand.

Crude oil for delivery in February rose 83 cents to $28.85 a barrel, the highest since before the Persian Gulf War. Home heating oil rose 3 cents to 77 cents a gallon as temperatures in New England dropped below zero and snow flurries were scattered across the Northeast.

Higher oil prices push up the retail price of gasoline and prompt airlines to boost ticket prices to compensate for the rising cost of jet fuel.

The average retail price of gasoline, which hit a low of 91 cents a gallon in February, rose to $1.28 a gallon last week, the Department of Energy said Tuesday.

Continental Airlines said Tuesday that it will add a $10 one-way surcharge to ticket prices because of the higher fuel prices. But Norman Sherlock, executive director of the National Business Travel Association, says few other airlines will raise fares because businesses balk at paying higher prices.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which cut their output last March and pushed up prices, have said they will maintain current production levels beyond the scheduled expiration date this March. And United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that Iraq's production was likely to drop because the country's oil facilities need repairs.

''If they don't change the production quotas soon, there isn't going to be enough oil,'' says Adam Sieminski, analyst for Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.

OPEC members are producing 26.5 million barrels a day but would have to produce at least 2 million barrels more to meet global demand, he says.

But if oil prices rise above $30 a barrel, politicians will increase calls for the U.S. to tap into stockpiles held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and non-OPEC countries will begin exporting more oil, says Fimat trader Michael Fitzpatrick. <<<

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), January 19, 2000

Answers

Has anybody heard about oil production, refineries, etc, in Indonesia, Malaysia, that whole part of the world?

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), January 19, 2000.

http://www.canoe.ca/MoneyOil/mw_crudeoil5.html

U.S. oil products jump on cold, refinery outage

-- (in@the.news), January 19, 2000.

for those who haven't figured it out yet, if it's in the usa today or a story by ap or reuters or any of the other mainstream puppets, it is bs.

oil prices are maybe the one thing they can't hide from the general public. oil runs the world.

this stuff in the papers (and on the tube, no doubt tonight) is pure spinmeister damage control.

from all of the real news we are hearing (thanks to this forum and others), tptb must be very nervous. if there's a crunch, these stories are a perfect way to set up opec, and lay the blame on them...imho.

o)

-- mike (mike@knuckledragger.com), January 19, 2000.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday that Iraq's production was likely to drop because the country's oil facilities need repairs.

I hear Dominoes Falling: Indonesia-Malyasia-Iraq-Saudi Arabia- Nigeria-Venezuela.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 19, 2000.

Here is a start. I have not seen much info on Indonesia other than a rumor that Shell and Exxon refineries in SE ASia, Malyasia I believe, were cutting back on production due to a crude oil supply problem. Indonesia was quoted as source for both refineries. Still looking for the supporting URL.

I hope the html works:

Thailand

Iran

Saudi Arabia

Iraq

Singapore

Russia

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 19, 2000.

Ed,

Shell and Exxon-Mobil announced shortly after rollover that they were cutting refining production for the whole year at their Singapore refineries because they said there was not enough demand. This was despite rising consumption to pre-recession levels. There was also reports of problems with those refineries that just coincided with the cutbacks to less than half of capacity. This announcement was the first clue and tipoff for me that things were not allright in oil after Y2K.

-- RC (racambab@mailcity.com), January 20, 2000.