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A friend of mine looked into how the strategic oil reserve actually works in Sweden. Large consumers of oil (think industry) are obliged to keep 90 day of oil consumption in stock. However, the physical presence of oil reserves are never checked, so it can just as well turn out to be on the books, but not in any barrels.

Government should (as large oil consumer) have some though.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 08:37:53 AM EST
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You mean they can be rolling 90-day oil futures and that counts as a strategic oil reserve?


When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 09:06:24 AM EST
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I am a bit unsure as to what kind of fancy papers futures are, or indeed what what kind of fancy papers counts as reserve. But the picture my friend painted was that where she was looking for storage systems, oil barrels, she found book-keeping. None of us being economists, I am not sure as to what kind of book-keeping.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 09:19:03 AM EST
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We used to have absoltuely vast underground resveres of oil, diesel and gasoline in this country.

Why?

  1. The military was obsessed with bunkers of all kinds. This country looks like a Swiss cheese.

  2. The military and the government was preparing for the last war, WW2, when we were cut off from oil imports for several years.

Actually, during the absurd "missing barrels" episode 10-something years ago people were speculating that all these (later understood as entirely fictious) missing barrels that depressed the oil price to under $10 were hidden in undreground bunkers in Sweden.

The rationality of the market...

And the rationality of government: all that oil was sold at bargain basement prices years ago.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 08:39:11 PM EST
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