"The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.
The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow."
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00953020080520?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&r pc=22&sp=true

From an international relations perspective, this beggers belief!
Firstly, you cant force someone to sell you something!
Secondly, US law is NOT global law!
Thirdly, these oil rich nations have been investing in the US....that investment would vanish overnight...sending the already weak US economy over the edge (its not as if there are other places to invest money!)

There is no chance that this law would pass, but nothing seems to serve as a better example of the arrogance and complete detachment reality that the US elite seems to have. Someone should remind them that oil is a limited reseource and that planet Earth is not run for the sole benefit of the USA!

Sort of surreal, as we talk about peak oil and soaring prices, to have an illustration of people panicking for the last drops of petrol throughout western France.

Doesn't affect me a whole lot - I drive a minimum and live in the city, bike to work and the store ... I guess I saw this coming a long time ago.

The heads of the big oil companies that testified yesterday before congress weren't much better. They suggested expanding US exploration, even though they know full well that any finds won't do much to solve shortages.

In addition we are in the middle of a panic. Oil prices are overshooting on the upside and we can expect bad polices to be enacted as a result. If one really wants to understand what is happening then, as usual, follow the money.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to do this, but one has to ask who benefits most from high prices. Speculation is an easy target, but makes little sense. Oil is not gold, you can't hoard enough to make a killing when the price rises. Oil producing states, however, don't have to hoard they just have to get higher revenue when they sell at the higher rates.

I would look at the behavior of the major oil states, especially those who control their oil operations directly and see what sorts of actions they have been taking of late. Have they been taking their windfall revenues and investing them elsewhere, or are they squandering them on expensive civic eye candy as Qatar is doing?

In the past when US "vital interests" were threatened we used gun boat diplomacy to force trading partners to behave as we wished, just because it didn't work out well in Iraq, doesn't mean it won't be tried elsewhere. If I had to guess I would suspect a rise in political instability in South America aimed at toppling the leftist governments that are too independent for America's liking. The CIA is very good at destabilizing governments.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

Blame Wall Street for $135 Oil on Wrong-Way Betting

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Oil's rally to a record above $135 a barrel came as traders bought crude to cover wrong-way bets that prices would decline, according to data from the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The number of outstanding futures contracts, known as open interest, fell 8.1 percent in a week to 1.36 million at the same time that prices rose 2.6 percent, the data show. Falling open interest and rising prices are signs that traders are buying to exit so-called short positions that would profit if oil fell, and lose money as they rose.

``In a market like today, which is trending higher while open interest is falling, it's a sign that money is moving out of the market,'' said Stephen Schork, president of Schork Group Inc. in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Open interest in Nymex crude futures peaked this year at 1.5 million on March 13.

Hehe, speculators were betting that prices would go down, and as they scramble to limit their losses, they push the prices further up - which means that the prices initially went up despite speculation...

Crude for delivery in December 2016 ended yesterday at $142.09 a barrel, signaling investors anticipate prices will gain for years. Some traders speculate oil will reach $200 this year. The price of a December 2008 option contract that allows the holder to buy 1,000 barrels of crude at $200 each jumped 67 percent in three days to $1.72 a barrel yesterday on the Nymex.

U.S. oil executives told Congress yesterday that prices should be between $35 and $90 a barrel. John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., the Houston-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, pegged the proper range ``somewhere between $35 and $65 a barrel.''

$1.72 to hedge oneself agaisnt $200 oil. Seems still pretty cheap to me...


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Asia to cut subsidies as oil hits $135

Asian governments on Thursday moved to cut energy subsidies to protect their finances and those of state-owned energy companies in the face of soaring oil prices.

As crude oil pushed through $135 a barrel for the first time, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia announced plans for urgent action to free prices or cut subsidy costs. China denied rumours of an imminent increase in retail prices, but may relax price controls.

Now that would be a major, major policy change. A welcome one, but a momentous one, with lots of potentially nasty politicla consequences.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes