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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40391)	3/18/2005 1:25:22 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206101

I have been reading a lot about China hitting an economic wall this year. There is a "hot money" issue there as speculators appear to believe China will have to decouple the Yuan from the US Dollar. It has concerned me enough to take our retirement accounts out of overseas growth funds in the last few weeks. They had been doing extremely well but it's not worth the risk given that the world appears to be teetering on the brink of a major unpleasant economic event.

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40391)	3/18/2005 3:15:27 PM
From: Taikun	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206101

In looking at those slides I see utilization numbers in the 90% area, up to 97%. The lowest number, 74%, is from 2003 in Asia. Most industries run at 70% utilization rates, to accomodate repairs and maintenance. It is true that the refining industry 'might be different', but looking at a 97% utilization rate and extrapolating that capacity exists is dangerous. The industry is already more than 30% above the normal range for most sectors, and that is 70%.

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40391)	3/19/2005 8:29:44 AM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206101

SOTB - That was a gem you posted from the EIA. I see your views are distorted by BS published by Stratfor. Geez what how many millions would have had to die to wipe out the 6 MBPD demand reduction cited by Stratfor in 1997-98. If I recall correctly the EIA shows no global reduction in demand during this period. But you can believe what you want. The EIA oil and electric data is the best we can get. Its data on NG storage is the only source. But as far as relying on the EIA for fully integrated explanations for oil and ng prices forget about it. If Asia has more refinery capacity where was the bottleneck then? Could it be there are not enough ships to transport the product? Could it be they did not anticipate being able to convert and market this product globally? So it seems the bears arguement is that refineries paid too much for their light sweet crude and they did not maximize production because the strong margins where just too much money to be made.

To: SliderOnTheBlack who wrote (40391)	3/19/2005 7:29:40 PM
From: Ed Ajootian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206101

Slider, always great to have folks such as yourself bringing up the "counterpoint" to the bull story. We need you guys to keep our feet on the ground. IMO, one of the things that the current miniscule excess OPEC oil production capacity has created is that it has turned the logic of bullish vs. bearish possibilities on its head. So the prospects of Chinese demand for oil dropping are actually bullish right now, since it will cause oil prices to go down and mitigate the chances of high oil prices taking down the world economy. Nobody wants $50 + oil, we can all make plenty of cash with $40 + oil. We know that the world economy can absorb oil in the mid-40's, but we don't know yet whether it can deal with $50 oil. So we would just as soon avoid finding out what would happen then. Your point about inventories dropping in supply/demand shocks is helpful. This tells me that oil price have not yet gone up high enough or fast enough to constitute a shock. Stratfor's concern about US interest rates continuing to rise a lot seems unwarranted to me. I don't see that strong an economic boom that would be able to support such interest rate increases here.