Oil price speculation?

How much is it speculation?

I made this chart to help estimate oil prices next year, despite the volatile trading. In my opinion, speculation accounts for an outer fringe of the price, but not the bulk price. I call this the hair chart!

Despite price volatility shown in green above, I foresee oil prices to increase year after year as demand rises above the flat output maximum threshold of 85mil-bpd. In my past blog: Making our own minds up as to why energy prices are rising you will see how the 1991 recession temporarily brought gas prices down. I believe this trend is happening right now. We may even see prices temporarily drop to $50 per barrel again if there is a global recession.

This year, the price of crude oil per barrel reached 144 and it has since dropped. The high numbers have not yet been recorded from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but we can see clearly the temporary drop in both the early 1980s and 1990s:

U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption (Thousand Barrels per Day)
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Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Decade	Year-0	Year-1	Year-2	Year-3	Year-4	Year-5	Year-6	Year-7	Year-8	Year-9
1970's				17,308	16,653	16,322	17,461	18,431	18,847	18,513
1980's	17,056	16,058	15,296	15,231	15,726	15,726	16,281	16,665	17,283	17,325
1990's	16,988	16,714	17,033	17,237	17,718	17,725	18,309	18,620	18,917	19,519
2000's	19,701	19,649	19,761	20,034	20,731	20,802	20,687	20,698

The difference this time is the banks can no longer allow consumers to continue spending like there is no tomorrow. Banks are going bankrupt and easy cheap credit is no longer available to most. Food inflation has climbed record highs (as I was predicting a year ago) and the cost of transportation has seriously affected the average consumer.

Although a recession helps stabilize the price growth of oil, things are different this time.
Countries such as China are expecting to quadruple their gas consumption by 2030.
I could go on but all this is what we already know!

So lets go back to saving energy and end on on a subject of good energy:

I work in a huge company in Los Angeles and last week I noticed the facilities department were replacing all their outdoor lights with new compact fluorescent light bulbs. I asked the guys changing the bulbs a few questions and they told me the department had spent $5000 on these bulbs. So we are talking a huge number of bulbs!

These new compact fluorescent bulbs are estimated to save our company over $36,000 (per year) in electricity bills. This means these bulbs will have already paid for themselves after the first month's bill. In addition, instead of changing bulbs every year or two, they only have to be changed every 8 years or longer!

For those who have tried compact fluorescent lights and disliked the brutal white color temperature (including the dim light before the bulb warms up) I have some good news. The performance of these new CF lights has greatly improved recently. I learned this myself when the Department of Water And Power in Glendale sent every household a CF bulb. When we replaced our existing bulb in the house we could not tell the difference. Here is the CF light we were sent:



Recycling used CFLs
Like most electronic equipment, batteries and computers, fluorescent bulbs and ballasts, including CFLs should not be tossed out with the trash when they eventually burn out. Current regulations require that electronics and CFLs should be disposed of at a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center. For more information visit http://www.fire.ci.glendale.ca.us/emc/househazard.asp or call
(818) 548-4030. Local Home Depot stores also recycle used CFLs



So on this green note, change your light bulbs before the price of these bulbs soar (on demand) and find yourself a bicycle and ride to work :)


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