Tag: WTI Crude

Will OPEC Be Turkeys Again?

Posted on by Adam Feik

Adam Feik - INO.com Contributor - Energies


Last year, while we Americans were busy overindulging on turkey and all the fixings, OPEC ministers pulled a fast one on us. While we innocently watched football and took naps, the price of WTI crude plummeted from $74 to $68 in response to OPEC’s announcement it would leave its oil production target unchanged at 30 million barrels per day (mb/d).

Until that weekend, oil in the $60s or $70s seemed unsustainably low.

Of course, even before OPEC’s big Turkey Day declaration, oil had already fallen about 30% from its June highs of $107, due to burgeoning supplies. But the summer swoon turned out to be just the warmup for the rest of oil’s big 17-month collapse (so far). OPEC’s Thanksgiving 2014 meeting sent prices reeling and continued pressures have kept crude near its lows (around $40) even today. Continue reading "Will OPEC Be Turkeys Again?" →

Government Sells Low

Posted on by Adam Feik

Adam Feik - INO.com Contributor - Energies


What will oil prices be when the U.S. government begins selling tens of millions of barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 2018?

The House passed a federal budget on Wednesday – which is reportedly on its way to likely Senate passage and Presidential signature – calling for the government to sell at least 58 million barrels of oil from the SPR over an 8-year period beginning in 2018. The SPR currently holds about 695 million barrels in 4 sites along the Gulf of Mexico coast. Per the budget bill, the U.S. may sell up to an additional $2 billion dollars’ worth of oil from the reserve to build new pipelines and otherwise modernize infrastructure. That program would represent an incremental 43.5 million barrels based on today’s prices, bringing the total number of barrels to be sold up to a possible 101.5 million. At today’s rates, that could add about $4.7 billion into the US Treasury.

Or… Continue reading "Government Sells Low" →