fwiw, i explained how oil prices are set in a comment on a blog post by Gail Tverberg, aka "Gail the Actuary" of the now defunct “Oil Drum”…her post is titled Debunking ‘Lower Oil Supply Will Raise Prices’ and is worth a read as well..
i agree with your premise, that supply has little impact on prices, but i would suggest a corollary that demand also matters little… i am interpreting your post to suggest that you think affordability, a stand in for demand, is the crucial factor for oil prices…that’s a misunderstanding common among those with an economics education, because it’s assumed to be true without further investigation…the fact is, none of the agents of the physical supply or demand for oil have much of an influence on its price; neither the producer, the refiners, nor the buyers of the final products…oil prices, moreso than prices for any other commodity, are set by speculators in New York, London, and other financial centers where oil contracts are traded, simply because their influence is so much greater than any party handling the physical commodity….on most days, the electronic trading in oil contracts on NYMEX exceeds the weekly physical production and movement of oil by more than a hundredfold; and as a result decisions by those oil traders has a much greater impact than oil’s supply, demand, or affordability….sure, those traders take supply and demand data into account when they’re buying or selling, but from my observations of the oil market over the past half dozen years, factors such as the latest tweet by Mr Trump have a greater impact on oil than any of those things economists believe about price…
EMichael
September 12, 2019 9:00 am
“As we all know, Wednesday was the 18th anniversary of one of the great disasters in American history. It was 18 years ago this week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scribbled the following note to himself. From CBS News:
‘With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” – meaning Saddam Hussein – “at same time. Not only UBL” – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn’t matter to Rumsfeld. “Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”‘
Don’t you wonder if they ever pause on September 11 every year and ponder how they all used the dead of that awful day for their own purposes, to fulfill their long-held desires for empire-building in the countries of oil, to use other people’s children in service of their profane desires? Don’t you wonder if they ever pause on September 11 and ponder how they’d all screwed up so badly throughout the summer of 2001 when, as Richard Clarke recalled, “all the lights were blinking red”? Do you wonder if they make the connection, in the softening dark of the early morning, between their own incompetence and the use they ultimately made of it?
Of course, you don’t wonder. Because they don’t. Introspection was never a priority with this crew. And as we see so many of them on television today, deeply troubled by the actions of another underprepared, incompetent president*, and using the dead of 9/11 as protective camouflage for all their deception and bloody blundering that occurred beginning that very morning, we should all take time to mourn the dead of that day, and all the days thereafter, and, yes, say, Never Again.”
fwiw, i explained how oil prices are set in a comment on a blog post by Gail Tverberg, aka "Gail the Actuary" of the now defunct “Oil Drum”…her post is titled Debunking ‘Lower Oil Supply Will Raise Prices’ and is worth a read as well..
i agree with your premise, that supply has little impact on prices, but i would suggest a corollary that demand also matters little… i am interpreting your post to suggest that you think affordability, a stand in for demand, is the crucial factor for oil prices…that’s a misunderstanding common among those with an economics education, because it’s assumed to be true without further investigation…the fact is, none of the agents of the physical supply or demand for oil have much of an influence on its price; neither the producer, the refiners, nor the buyers of the final products…oil prices, moreso than prices for any other commodity, are set by speculators in New York, London, and other financial centers where oil contracts are traded, simply because their influence is so much greater than any party handling the physical commodity….on most days, the electronic trading in oil contracts on NYMEX exceeds the weekly physical production and movement of oil by more than a hundredfold; and as a result decisions by those oil traders has a much greater impact than oil’s supply, demand, or affordability….sure, those traders take supply and demand data into account when they’re buying or selling, but from my observations of the oil market over the past half dozen years, factors such as the latest tweet by Mr Trump have a greater impact on oil than any of those things economists believe about price…
“As we all know, Wednesday was the 18th anniversary of one of the great disasters in American history. It was 18 years ago this week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scribbled the following note to himself. From CBS News:
‘With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” – meaning Saddam Hussein – “at same time. Not only UBL” – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn’t matter to Rumsfeld. “Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”‘
Don’t you wonder if they ever pause on September 11 every year and ponder how they all used the dead of that awful day for their own purposes, to fulfill their long-held desires for empire-building in the countries of oil, to use other people’s children in service of their profane desires? Don’t you wonder if they ever pause on September 11 and ponder how they’d all screwed up so badly throughout the summer of 2001 when, as Richard Clarke recalled, “all the lights were blinking red”? Do you wonder if they make the connection, in the softening dark of the early morning, between their own incompetence and the use they ultimately made of it?
Of course, you don’t wonder. Because they don’t. Introspection was never a priority with this crew. And as we see so many of them on television today, deeply troubled by the actions of another underprepared, incompetent president*, and using the dead of 9/11 as protective camouflage for all their deception and bloody blundering that occurred beginning that very morning, we should all take time to mourn the dead of that day, and all the days thereafter, and, yes, say, Never Again.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29001940/donald-rumsfeld-9-11-iraq-memo/
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