Why is the price of oil rising?
It’s rising…
because an oil rig blew up,
because OPEC said it wanted it to rise,
because the trouble in Egypt makes people fear the closure of the Suez canal,
because hedge fund speculation is more and more active,
because America has been hit by a blizzard,
because OPEC is holding a meeting,
because OPEC doesn’t hold a meeting,
because the strategic stock level has increased,
because there’s a cold snap across Europe,
because Chinese provinces have cut electricity distribution to certain companies which fell back on diesel generators,
because the US unemployment rate is falling,
because there are strikes in refineries in France,
because Goldman Sachs says that it knows –self-fulfilling prophecy – that it must rise,
because it’s the start of the refinery maintenance season,
because the American maize harvest intended for biofuels was hit by bad weather,
because the Fed is keeping interest rates low, which favours the carry-trade,
because tensions are increasing between Iran and the international community
because the Mississippi is in spate and threatens oil installations,
because the dollar is falling,
because a pipeline in Alaska is defective,
because the Gulf of Mexico was hit by a hurricane,
because there is a flow of liquidity onto debt-funded raw material markets,
because it’s the “driving season” in the US,
because environmentalists are blocking an oil shale site,
because a country in the Middle East is experiencing political trouble, leading to fears that it will spread,
because the Euro is rising,
because the IEA says it will rise,
because the IEA says it will fall
…
Perhaps…
…
Perhaps the price of oil is rising because it wasn’t expensive because it was easy to extract from underground; because we need it; because we find it hard to do without it; because more and more of us need it; because it took a few hundred million years to manufacture it for us and because we hardly find it easy to extract from underground when there are more and more of us who have trouble doing without it…
Michel LEPETIT
Treasure of The Shift Project
