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Posts Tagged ‘petroleum’

Pricing oil for the future

Friday, 11 September 2009 07:43 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

Jett-Rink“To run a pricing market for a non-renewable resource off rationing short-term supply and demand makes no sense.” – Gregor MacDonald

One of the worst traps in thinking about the future is assuming that your images of 20, 30, or 50 years ago are still likely, or even possible, in the future. Gregor illustrates this beautifully in his post “Jett Rink’s Speedboat,” about how today’s major oil finds will never lead back to some cheap oil pseudo-paradise of the 1950s and 60s. They cannot. Because this world is so very different.

Notice also his comments on how hyperbolic oil companies are becoming from oil field “discoveries” that sound dauntingly difficult – and how the market responds anyway.

Real GDP and the crazy swings in the price of oil

Thursday, 22 January 2009 14:16 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

A retweet (if you will) from futurist Glen Hiemstra, I highly recommend this terrific analysis of why oil prices are so low, and what you can expect them to do given the macro-economic situation – courtesy of Gail the Actuary.

This is the kind of economic data we need to see more of – not housing starts, not sales of Korean-made televisions, not fake consumer spending juiced-up by fake home equity loans, but our real situation. And according to this, we haven’t made real economic progress in quite some time.

2009 is the year we start dealing with the real future, and not what we prefer to believe.

The future of natural resources: aluminum prices plummet

Tuesday, 09 December 2008 12:36 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

At this moment , you can really see the effect of speculative markets on our economy the past few years . Gasoline in Washington is now cheaper than my morning coffee – around $1.70 at the time of this post. This shows how incredibly powerful speculation has been. The world economy has not been cut in half, but many resources are falling dramatically in price.

Today, the global cash price for aluminum also fell to around half of what it was earlier this year. It may seem crazy, but then again, there are THOUSANDS OF YEARS left of aluminum in the Earth’s crust.

The future of scarcity is not what many have been led to believe! More below:

STEEP Report Future of Natural Resource Scarcity

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: water coal)

Drop in oil prices don’t match the long-term future…or do they?

Friday, 24 October 2008 12:09 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about finally paying less that $3 a gallon for gasoline. Something seems out of balance about the preciptous drop in the crude oil futures, down to $64.

It’s called futures, right? Well, even in the case of a total meltdown in the global economy, the Chinese, Indians, and South Americans will still expand their GDP, putting long-term pressure on global production of refined petroleum and petrochemicals. I understand the recession taking off a few bucks per barrel, but this rapid fluctuation may tell another story.

Perhaps it’s that speculators are leaving various markets in droves. After all, mortgage commodity speculation isn’t looking all that healthy, now is it?

Many people received a weird email from the CEOs of various airlines not long ago about how 60% of oil was bought by speculators who never intended to take delivery, artificially driving up prices. If they are leaving that game, it could be that prices are returning to the actual supply-demand curve.

Perhaps it’s unregulated speculation that has the weaker future.

About the blog

This is the official trend blog of Competitive Futures, a management consultancy that provides trend research and analysis for business and government around the world. Here, we update you on interesting trends we see as part of our work for our clients.


For managing partner Eric Garland's new author and speaker blog, please consult and bookmark http://www.ericgarland.co

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