Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FR1 who wrote (50)	9/27/2000 8:07:49 AM
From: Elsewhere	Respond to of 24758

I read a comment from a Arab oil minister recently. He was very negative about the high price of oil and felt this was the beginning of the end for the oil nations. I guess it was a Yamani article: dailynews.yahoo.com Monday September 4 7:16 AM ET Yamani: OPEC Speeding End of the Oil Era By Richard Mably LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani is in little doubt -- petroleum prices now spiralling out of control will prove a last hoorah for OPEC oil power. For the former Saudi oil minister, the return to $30 a barrel crude has only hastened the day when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will be left staring at untouched fuel reserves, marking the end of the oil era. ...

To: FR1 who wrote (50)	9/27/2000 11:14:02 AM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

Why would an oil minister know anything about fuel cells or about oil for that matter? The Arab's judgement about how to manage oil has been perfectly awful for 50 years. They always choose the Harvard way. For example, in order to raise the price from depressed levels they cut supply. When they started doing this world demand was already strong. Right action would have been to fiat raise the price. They needed to slow demand, not slow supply. If they had raised price, competitors would have simply marked their oil up similarly because the Arabs are the low cost producers and the competitors were making any money at $11/bbl. Raising price would have enabled the Arabs to gradually raise prices to say $22 where it could steadily stay for many years. By cutting supply the Arabs changed the structural nature of the market and thereby have encouraged the production of new or shut in marginal supply. None of this has much if any impact on fuel cell development except for some socialist government knee jerk reaction in order to look good to the public by throwing money at some program to stimulate alternate fuels. The new supply incentive and the changed mentality brought by higher price will cause price to come tumbling down next year to say, $15/bbl, and the doomers will quietly disappear.