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 : Natural Resource Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (23292)	4/1/2005 10:00:24 PM
From: Roebear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 109447

Either Slider has a doppelganger or he was close to this bear's den in PA. In any case, Slider is not alone: Copied from the StockHouse board: Oil expert discusses high prices Controversial theory presented at Rotary By Patrick Burns Intelligencer Journal Published: Mar 28, 2005 9:12 AM EST LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - A controversial oil industry expert speaking earlier this month at the Lancaster Rotary Club said the U.S. government is responsible for record-high gasoline prices. James R. Norman, a former editor of Forbes magazine and a senior writer with a prominent oil industry newsletter, said high oil prices are part of a National Security Administration policy to prevent the superpower Chinese from achieving global dominance. Norman, who also spoke at two other venues in Lancaster this month, said there is a long-term economic strategy in place to restrain Chinese growth through artificially high oil prices. By creating "paper demand" for oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange, large U.S. oil companies, the Saudis and the Bush administration have conspired to nearly triple world oil prices from about $20 a barrel in New York at the start of 2002, according to Norman. . . Norman dismissed oil industry claims that prices have risen due to producers' struggle to keep up with the world's oil thirst of more than 84 million barrels of per day. "The margin requirements on the NYMEX are minimal - it's only about a 6 percent margin - so with a little bit of money you can create a lot of demand for barrels on the NYMEX and run that price up," Norman said. Norman, who worked as a reporter covering the oil industry in Houston for nine years before joining Forbes, said unknown institutional fund buyers have created a huge demand for oil and pushed the price of light sweet crude oil on the West Texas Intermediate. . . Evidence of a covert plan to fix prices includes massive cuts in capital spending by U.S. oil companies that essentially shut down oil exploration since 2000, a Saudi change from a market-share strategy to a price-support strategy that restricted its output and an increase in U.S. strategic oil reserves when prices are at near record highs, Norman said. He said American oil companies no longer assist the Chinese and that Exxon, BP, Shell and others have inexplicably sold their stake in oil companies there. . . In perhaps his most controversial assertion, Norman suggested that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was partially motivated by Chinese interest in Iraqi oil. The war negated an agreement Saddam Hussein had signed giving China equity interest in oil rights once U.N. sanctions were lifted. "If the sanctions were lifted and the Chinese got in there, we'd never be able to undo that situation," Norman said. "The war was a screaming success because it kept China from acquiring in-the-ground oil reserves in the Middle East and basically put the Chinese on notice that wherever they go for oil, there will be hell to pay." Norman, who writes for Platts Oilgram News in New York, said manipulated oil prices in the 1980s coerced Soviet Union capitulation. The Reagan administration manipulated oil prices downward to limit the Soviet Union's hard currency and force it into bankruptcy, Norman said. He pointed to a 1982 National Security Administration directive that spelled out the Reagan administration's plan to attack key elements in the Russian economy, including its oil exportation. The Saudis overproduced oil when prices had been skidding and U.S. oil companies also had increased their oil production by 5 percent per year,said Norman. Ironically, Norman believes the Russians, who have refused to build an oil pipeline into China, are now on board with the U.S.government in isolating the Chinese.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (23292)	4/1/2005 10:22:35 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 109447

Bob, I should have put a codicil on this post like did when I later linked it on Big Dog's thread... I'm not picking on Neocons here and I'm certainly not trying to start a political discussion :O) just offering another theory on the oil war. I do agree with Slider that this is a fight over oil but I think it is just business as usual in the geopolitical arena and not an actual singling out of China, and it has many miles to go so there he and I diverge I guess. Go back to the the Treaty of Versailles and even then the dividing up of the old Ottoman Empire had very much to do with oil in the region. As far as taking control ? It's more about guaranteeing access... not really the same thing.. and not an unwise endeavour... investorshub.com Republican, Democrat, Liberal, conservative... doesn't matter... It's not about good or bad.. Here is a Stratfor piece I agree with right up to the and including the conclusion... So I guess I do think it was about oil... but like Stratfor says ... Some call it cold, Machiavellian, even malign. Stratfor has a simpler term: geopolitics. regards Kastel