But, what do I know?

$112

far enough past the election to not be actively trying to keep the price down, and the dems not in power yet so the price wont have really been let go to help prove economic incompetence.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

211,50 $
because Bush will start a war with Iran, before he leaves office.


Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

All that speculation that was really holding the price up gets burned when oil hits $99, and it quickly drops to $68.37

I'm going for both over AND under on the same bet.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

Oh, this is easy shit, unless you're going to reference a Magic 8 ball, tea leaves, OuiJa Board, etc.

We want to solve for y (price per barrel of oil; units = US buckeroos) as a function of time (t) at t = Dec. 31.

(Didn't you folks pay attention in science stats class?)

Fine.

You folks are the experts; I'm not one.  

Identify for me ALL of the Independent Variables (factors) which affect y; take your time; no pun; no hurry; no cheating and looking at your neighbor's paper.  Are these factors first order, squared, etc.

Also, give me all of the Constants which also factor into determining y.

What are the error bars associated with these factors?

Once we have this equation to our liking, let's see how accurately it predicts previous y's and then plug in our new future date (Dec. 31) and see what falls out, cognizant of the fact that there could be a feed-back information loop; if this works, people reading ET will effect the system with their behaviors, but we can then model this variable in a new equation.

Let's get to work.  You're not getting paid the big bucks to sit around on your multi-lingual butts.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

$144/bbl. It's a number with all kinds of nifty connections, and it will also be about 2 months past the dethroning of the Rethuglicans. After Nov 4, the price can go back to where supply and demand balances exist, more or less, and the effects of some of the recent Hedgers will have worn thin, and winter will be in full swing, in the aftermath of all those 2008 'canes.

Of course, slight tweekings of the oil market to favor the Rethugs just before an election (Peak Oil...what Peak Oil?) would never happen, by cranking out whatever oil can be pumped or dumped as hedges....Just can't be done, so don't think about it. And the same for inflation and body blows to economies, as oil price rises (what price rises, what Peak Oil, what Peak Natural Gas?) worm their way through societies and economies. What inflation - no oil price rise, oil prices and Ngas prices are falling, right? Why, since oil prices are falling and  not the sky, good times must be just around the corner (especially if one is rich enough), if only the Rethugs achieve the improbable (and probably not legal) outcome that is in their evil heart's desire - re-election and rethroning.

So, it's $144.

Nb41

You can find my latest musings on European energy policy (or rather the lack thereof) and Russia over at the Oil Drum.

And, what do you know, here on the European Tribune too!

$120

Why?

Because.  I suppose this is as good a reason as any.

But seriously, I think that a lot of the peak earlier in the year was Chinese buying for their strategic supply.  

Gustav was not nearly as bad as it could be, and it looks like all the others are going to hit the East Coast, not the Gulf of Mexico.  I also think that the there is going to be a bailout of the Big Three automakers, and that part of that is going to be a heavy push to retool for plug in electric hybrids like the Chevy Volt, which will substantially reduce oil use in the future because they can go 40 miles without using a drop of gas.

I also see a mild slowdown in the works in East Asia as American demand for Chinese goods drops due to the recession.  A year or two of 4-5% growth in China will pop a lot of the over the top enthusiasm that's sent the Chinese middle class out buying cars.  

In the end though, I think that the oil producing states have caught on that the West will accept current prices, and regardless the power of the Saudis to use excess capacity to affect the market is long gone.  And the Russians?  Please.  Papa Putin isn't going to turn on the spigot to please the West at this point.  And I'm certain they are equally displeased with the Chinese after their friends in Beijing failed to back them up on Georgia.

So mostly downward pressure, but there's a floor.  And as long as there's an OPEC, I suspect that floor will not be breached.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

$127.69
Is what I got out of the random number generator, and thus my guess...

Because substitution will kick in eventually, prices need not really be too high. We will use more coal and gas in several applications.

On the other hand, volatility is very large.

I'd really like to put a lower number, but December 31 is too close to the 2008 IEA World Energy Outlook which is going to be a shocker to a lot of people.

So let's say... $144.

With some years of substitution prices could well fall by half from that level.

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

$102.76

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

$122.21

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

$100

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

well, I was going for $120, but MfM got there first, so how about $117 ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

[ET Moderation Technology™]

Eliminated unwanted whitespace.

When copy-pasting HTML into a diary or comment, make sure you set the formatting to "HTML formatted" because the "Auto Format" will introduce lots of stray <br> tags, especially in tables and lists.

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

I still don't think it was a bubble. The volatility of prices is expected, as I explained in my previous installment (opus 10 below);

The see-saw pattern is bubble-like.

You can see little bubbles upon big bubbles (as in, the Feb-MidMarch pattern is a rescaled version of the Feb-August pattern) ad infinitum, in an appropriately fractal manner, but the way volatility is realised is through bubbles. It is not Brownian motion by any stretch of imagination.
Here are some little waves upon big waves ad infinitum.


A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

$181

I have no idea what the price will be, so I pick it like I would pick a number for the lottery. :-)

Wanted to say $117...

As that's taken, I'll go for $131.13. On the hopes that China starts revving up again in Autumn.

$94

€70

Or about $120.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

$105.89

you are the media you consume.

Wanting to pick up the high tail of the distribution...

I asked a colleague to pick a number for me and she said 139 so, I bet $139.

"Magic Eightball, will the price of oil...."

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

My take is that oil price is formed in a chaotic environment, with major players having hidden agenda's.

Hidden from the public at large, governments, one another and intellectuals alike.

The chaotic nature comes from the fact that there are too many variables to start with and that these are beyond anyone's control. One or more variables changing in seemingly insignificant ways can result in major consequences anywhere anytime.

So much for the intellect, planning and a feeling of security.

There are ways we can make progress regarding these matters though. But that takes an overhaul of our current ways of relating to ourselves and others.

I hope we can make the transition

• from an over reliance on the intellect amongst bloggers here, as well as academia and policy makers in general and an under use of this faculty in the corporate domain
  
• to one where the intellect is situated, by embedding it in the larger scope of human capacities

This is described well by http://www.presencing.com/capacitybuilding/globalclassroom.shtml

An example and invitation can be found on http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dc32w233_471hb9dg4cm

Greetings,

Emil Möller

High because the dollar is shortly going to be toilet paper - along with the pound.

You can't be me, I'm taken

$110.50

$179,80 !

Responding to your point 2 in the diary about speculation being blamed for the run up but not mentioned in the decline in the price, a family member of mine is quite keen on speculators as the explanation for the volatility in the price, but I think what he would say is that the speculators drove the price up, but now they've been somehow dealt with or their effect minimized, and the price is regressing to a more "normal" (or "correct"?) level.

Not my personal view, but I thought I would share it.

No bet on the Dec 31 price.

Il faut se dépêcher d'agir, on a le monde à reconstruire

$127.00

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

I was going for 127, but it's taken.

So let's say $129,99...

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

... whatever that might be in dollars at the time.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.