Look, as much as I would love for the major news outlets to hammer crude into oblivion, I can’t let this slip past. The Associated Press is harolding the new dawn of Libyan oil to the market place and how it could help suppress prices another $10-25 a barrel.
Awesome, I welcome the news.
But if that news hasn’t been priced in over the months since the rebels took control of Tripoli, then I will be absolutely shocked. If you didn’t know that oil was going to resume export from the country, then you either didn’t know where or what Libya was, or were dead. If it’s the former case, then you’re excused for your ignorance.
Why do you think we had that much firepower raining down on Qaddafi’s loyalist forces? Because we care about the Libyan people?
Was it a coincidence that the strategic oil port of Brega was one of the very first locations to fall? Why not have gone straight to Tripoli?
Because we didn’t care if the freedom fighters ultimately salvaged the country or not. If they wanted our help in taking down the whole thing, then they needed to show strategic usefulness first. That meant clearing the path to restoring the flow of oil and helping to guarantee we didn’t see a repeat “Kuwait Move.”
So it was; the oil port fell, the rebels secured some of the fields, and we knew that if we protected them we’d at least get some benefit from it. Obama presses with drone attacks and other aid for the rebel forces. But if they had failed, we would still have secured what we wanted. Libya would have probably been split into two countries, with the central region left landlocked and without anything to trade with.
So excuse me if I think now maybe isn’t the time to be selling oil because of “Libya.” But hey, you’ve all been behaving so crazy lately, maybe this is the cow that burns down Chicago. And if you want any better reasons to sell oil, I’m sure I can provide you with a whole host of them.
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it will artificially stay high.the gubmints, local ,state wide, and fed gov will lose revenue big time from the gasoline tax otherwise.and their only “lie” that can be used,in order for the r-bob to stay high,are bs numbers stating “supply constraint” on gas. on the other hand, we would all like to see 1.75 gas,or lower. but that wont happen
I love it how dealing with one dictator was keeping the supply off and now dealing with a completely disorganized mob after a civil war where they blew up a lot of the infrastructure is suddenly going to bring the supply back tomorrow. Just stupid headline trading.
Certainly there is anticipation of Libyan oil coming back on line. But the ‘when’ is still uncertain, and the actual effects on supply and demand equilibrium of the actual product may be different than what the market price has priced in as anticipation of that event. Libyan oil production will probably not come on smoothly either.
I’m wondering which Swiss banks have most of the Qaddafi cash stash— and if they are gonna keep a bunch of it as unclaimed?
Now THAT, is the question of the day!!