Interesting Comment from Head of OPEC

[levinge]

Heard on the News this morning that the head of OPEC was quoted as saying "The Current price of fuel was abnormally high and could fall as low as $US78 per litre in the near future" which will mean we start paying less than $1.00 per litre.

Suddenly fishing becomes more viable for people. I guess we just wait and see???

[Blackened]

G'day

Call me a sceptic, but I don't see the price coming under the $1 mark, even if the barrel drops significantly

Dave

[levinge]

I agree, buts its nice to dream!!!

[disorderly]

Just checked the calender and nope....it's not April 1st.

[backlash08]

i guess a lot depends on political stability in the middle east

[Scott nthQld]

The only thing pushing the oil price up is china, they have a huge demand for it. But when it comes to petrol at the pump, there simply isn't enough competition to keep prices down and when we've got so called expert Business analysts "predicting" that fuel will go up, what would you do if your were Mobil, Shell etc, me I'd just go "oh well, they've predicted it, let's not make liars out of them, that's the governments job".

I'll believe it when I see it. But it would be nice though.

[Gagga08]

The price of fuel will drop and has in some parts of Australia already dropped twenty cents a litre in the past two weeks, back to 1.45 a litre in Geelong (It was up to 1.69) . Expect these trends to continue, but I doupt it will ever be under as dollar a litre again.

[FNQCairns]

Not long ago, a few months, 2 respected but different forecasting institutions each forecast 2 different fuel price by Christmas, one said $2 p/l the other 80C p/l. Guess which one got the most dramatic media air and paper time, the other just as reputable forecast was near totally ignored.

Possibly the ignored forecast will win in the end?..... Sounds identical to our environmental forecasts, the voices of reason and understanding are simply not dramatic enough to be worthy of repeating when trying to sell an ideology and make more money.

cheers fnq

[death_ship]

such a dramatic rise in prices such a short time cannot be sustainable just as the stock market dipped oil is tipped to dip soon as well, just depends how far the rise was fuelled by speculation. now they are talking about interest rate cuts as well depending on how much the economy softens.

[honda900]

Dont forget there has been a little political pressure bought to bear on opec, with the yanks paying them a visit, :o then out of the blue, the yank petrol stocks suddenly are good for 20 years.

The toothless tiger (KRudd) pay em a visit, :o yeah we are going to accelerate "Eco friendly vehicles" and oil extracted from other materials.

Then Opec comes out and says, "we think the price has reached an equilibrium in the market place".

yet the price per barrell starts to drop, now much lower predictions coming out.

Funny that hey..

Regards
Honda

[TimiBoy]

Every 2 cents in price change in diesel = $100 per month on my bottom line. We have been able to adjust the type of work we're doing to cope with the diesel price, so we're OK. But the question I have to ask is;

1. Why is diesel NOT coming down in price, and,

2. Why is no one saying anything about it???

Cheers,

Tim

[2manylures]

Every 2 cents in price change in diesel = $100 per month on my bottom line. We have been able to adjust the type of work we're doing to cope with the diesel price, so we're OK. But the question I have to ask is;

1. Why is diesel NOT coming down in price, and,

2. Why is no one saying anything about it???

Cheers,

Tim

Tim I was in the Petrol Station business many yrs ago WHEN DIESAL was around 10 cents per litre CHEAPER than petrol. :o Diesal was cheaper for decades.:o

All of a sudden some yrs back it overtook petrol, who knows WHY, however I was talking to an older fella a week ago {petrol station owner} & asked him. He was told by an engineer from an oil company that the cost to refine diesal was a much more expensive process due to the extra refining it needs over petrol:o :o :o . What a crock of shite after "decades" of easier & cheaper!

After all diesal is only basically Kero & Oil

We must keep in mind the ACCC has about as much balls as the UN or an injured toothless tiger.

Gagga, aren't Victorians still paying the 3 cent levy for the Pyramid collapse many yrs ago? Bloody Geelong's gotta lot to answer for!;)

[disorderly]

Possibly the ignored forecast will win in the end?..... Sounds identical to our environmental forecasts, the voices of reason and understanding are simply not dramatic enough to be worthy of repeating when trying to sell an ideology and make more money.

cheers fnq

Yeah mate...I dont follow the news much anymore..it's a bloody circus..
Just have a think for a minute about how many of our financial and social trends are media driven or at least influenced to an astounding degree by sensationalist reporting created by competition for ratings...

Its a disgrace really and my kids have not watched free to air telly in their lifetimes ...it's an absolute waste of headspace.http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/../yabbfiles/Templates/Forum/default/angry.gif

Scott

[marco]

G'day

Call me a sceptic, but I don't see the price coming under the $1 mark, even if the barrel drops significantly

Dave

very wise words dave , the oil companies in oz will not allow it to drop below $1 as it was such a big deal getting above it . they have conditioned the market and will come up with all sorts of bs to keep it conditioned .

mark

[Jabba_]

I keep an eye on the bloomberg site... It's updated oil prices every 30mins... Today it dipped as low as $121.53 barrel.... I have been trading for years on the Stock market and Forex..... My prediction last week was if the bbl didn't hit $127 by Tuesday this week, we can expect it to go as low as $121bbl..... I think there will be a lot off resistance at $120 wit traders buy at relative cheap price in a hope it will reach $150...

I personally think if the bbl drops below the $120 mark, we will definitely be in bear market, and I would not doubt that the oil will fall to $100 a barrel before the end off the year....

As a nation we need to keep the pressure on the policies and oil companies... None off this near enough is good enough crap, in terms off price/litre.. If were ever going to see petrol at $1.00 again, we need to play hard. That means using less fuel and staying vocal and demanding alternative fuels... The use off alternitve fuels scare the crap out off oil companies, even more so, electric vechials... So a bigger demand for them is going to drive the oil companies crazie...
Don't let up or the bastards will try to bleed us dry again......

[tigermullet]

I doubt that diesel will ever again be cheaper than petrol because diesel is the fuel of choice in much of Asia. Unfortunately, we buy on that market and demand for diesel just keeps on increasing.

Hoping to buy petrol and diesel and petrol at under $1 per litre in the near future seems like wishful thinking. I hope cheaper prices are achievable but that might imply demand destruction which will bring about other undesirable consequences in our economy.

The whole scene is complex and confusing. I wish that it would all go away and we could get back to fishing without being troubled by the cost of mortgages, fuel and other essentials.

But really, it's a mess, with the words and actions of bankers, financial whizzes and politicians giving the sense that they are trying to put lipstick on a pig.

[frank100]

Guys !
You have all missed the point entirely. The Arabs use the Islamic calendar.
Today is April 1, 1607
LOL

[Moonlighter]

I'll throw some fuel on this fire - pardon the pun!

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I received a document prepared by Suncorp's treasury team - they provide big organisations with briefings on key movements in the market covering all sorts of things - shares, commodity, agricultural futures, etc and they do extensive analysis of this stuff all of the time. It's their core business, how they make their money.

Well this briefing paper was their analysis of the price of crude oil per barrel, and the bottom line was very consistent with the experts views and OPEC views quoted earlier in this thread - in fact they predicted oil to be back below $100 US by the end of this year and to eventually drop back to as low as $70 a barrel by end of 2009, and to stabilise there for some time.

Whilst they acknowledged that a lot of "courage" is required to predict any of this with any certainty, the message was clear - the reason for the recent spike is all about rampant speculation in the markets and fear, not about supply and demand, which is easily being met by the oil producers. It presented quite an analytical and unemotional assessment in plain language and simply concluded that there was no good reason or rationale for the oil price to be where it is now and that the market would soon start to correct itself.

This was about 3 weeks or so as I mentioned earlier.

I'm not saying they will be right (but like all of us I hope they are!) but shortly after their article the price of oil did start to drop and its continued to drop since then, so maybe they might just be on the money. The Sheiks seem to agree. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Grant

[fishing111]

This is just a few paragraphs out of an article in USA Today.


"Speculation is not illegal, but that does not mean it isn't hurtful," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., at a Senate hearing last Tuesday addressing the role of speculation on energy prices. He plans to roll out an anti-speculation bill after July 4.
"Speculators," added Lieberman, "are moving enormous amounts of money into commodity markets for the obvious purpose of making more money. But in doing so, they are artificially inflating the price of fuel futures and causing real financial suffering for millions of people."
Some lawmakers contend that oil prices would tumble sharply, perhaps to $60 a barrel, if speculators were banned from commodities markets. They suspect — but have yet to prove — that illegal market manipulation is inflating a commodities "bubble." The CFTC acknowledges that it started a nationwide probe in December to investigate possible illegal activity in the oil futures market.
But without full knowledge of who all the players are and how big their positions are in the oil futures market, both regulators and politicians admit it's tough to prove their suspicions. "At this point, we simply don't know what role speculation or manipulation is playing in price increases," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, said in a recent statement.