OPEC cuts record 2.2. million barrels a day
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
This is the oil industries way of controlling prices, so that you will have to pay more at the pump. The industry finds every excuse to manipulate and goes to extreme measures in order to keep prices high, and they invent their own crisis to exploit the consumers.
Last year, the oil companies had a windfall profit, more than in any other time in history.
What we see happening now, is an attempt to set another new windfall profit record.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/ynews;_ylt=ArKonJRjWmiybXzgUrnMaBFv...
OPEC agrees to cut of two million oil barrels - video
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Oil-Industry/ss/events/bs/040104opec;...
Oil industry slide show
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/ynews;_ylt=Av7X3BB_ubE6dtdleNkI_Ytv...
ch=4226720&cl=11140012&lang=en
Crude continues to decline - video
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Chakib-Khelil/photo//081217/photos_bs...
Photo - Algeria's Oil Minister and OPEC President Chakib Khelil (L) smiles as he walks with Venezuela's Energy minister. I would be smiling to with those kinds of windfall profits, never mind how consumers have to suffer.
ORAN, Algeria – OPEC on Wednesday agreed to slash a record 2.2 million barrels from its daily production as of Jan. 1, while the bloc's outsiders Russia and Azerbaijan announced their own cutbacks of hundreds of thousands of barrels from the market,
which is a huge plot to create a shortage and extort the consumers pocketbook.
Oil prices tumbled close to four-year lows after the announcement, however, a clear indication of the growing belief that the world is heading for a long and painful recession in which energy use will continue to erode. We should make it erode all the way, and get all of our vehicles converted to non gas using engines, which technology has already made available, but is being suppressed purposefully by the rich oil companies in order to keep us oil dependent.
In just five months, crude has given up all of the price gains made over the past four years. And well it should, because there had been an absolute record breaking windfall profit by oil companies.
Crude sank to $40.20 after the announcement, a price not seen since the summer of 2004. However, these prices have already gone up again due to the hopes hung on the interest cut, which made prices rally already.
Making matters worse for OPEC, Moscow distanced itself from direct ties with the 13-nation producers' group, further dampening OPEC hopes of coordinated production cuts that might put a floor under crude prices. They had hopes of making a whole world gas shortage to make it appear that consumer prices had to be high to resolve this created artificial shortage.
OPEC said oil ministers of the 11 nations under the group's quota system agreed to take 4.2 million barrels a day off the market, but that includes two previous announced cuts that totaled 2 million barrels already. This insures such a shortage that consumers will be waiting in long gas lines for a long time to come, and they will not increase production for adequate supplies unless they can raise the price so high that no one will be able to afford gas anymore, which is the same tricks being used in the food industry also.
That leaves the new output reduction announced Wednesday at 2.2 million barrels — the largest single production cut ever, to bolster up the shortage factor that this will create, in order to raise prices for consumers.
Still, even the record cut was unable to counterbalance consumers' concerns about the dismal world economy. This will make it unbearable for the consumers to survive because of this action in making these cuts to inflate prices.
In the U.S., the world's largest crude consumer, the Federal Reserve's decision to slash its target interest rate to nearly zero buoyed global stock markets Tuesday and early Wednesday. But OPEC is not interested in helping consumers, only in robbing them blind.
But the news on the U.S. economy is expected to get worse before it gets better. Businesses, which have already cut nearly 2 million jobs since January, keep laying off workers in the face of slumping demand. However, there is not demand slump, in fact the consumers are using more now since prices have gone down. The figures taken to determine this demand slump were taken before prices went down, to artificially make the market show a slump.
The government reported Tuesday before the Fed rate announcement that home builders slashed production in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in nearly a quarter century. That pushed activity down to a record low annual rate of 625,000 units as the woes in the property market, where the current economic troubles began, showed no signs of abating, which has nothing to do with the price of oil, but it sounds good to put in the troubles elsewhere to make it seem that it reflects on oil costs.
Focusing on the shrinking oil market, OPEC noted in its statement that "crude volumes entering the market remain well in excess of actual demand." This is only because that during the extreme high cost period, consumers did slack off on buying and so a surplus built up. This is going to be the excuse to halt production, in order to create a shortage, so that the prices can go back up. It is a dirty trick that they have used in the past, but doing it now, when all of the consumers are in financial distress, that trick is beyond the confines of merely and evil deed, and ranks up there with the attributes of a crime against humanity.
"Moreover, the impact of the grave global economic downturn has led to a destruction of demand, resulting in unprecedented downward pressure being exerted on prices," it said. In other words, the oil industry wants to get those prices hiked up to the outrageous highs again, that created the surplus in the first place, to rob the average consumer of the only small bit of break that there is in this economy.
The group said "if unchecked, prices could fall to levels which would place in jeopardy the investments required to guarantee adequate energy supply. The only jeopardy here is to the oil companies not making an absolute windfall profit, as they did last year. Dammed be the consumers, as long as the rich can get richer.
In addition to signaling that a major cut was in the offing in the days leading up to the Oran conference, OPEC ministers had expressed hope that Russia — the No. 2 producer after Saudi Arabia — would join in a significant cutback that would bolster prices. Oh, yes, by all means, lets raise the price at the pumps again, so that the rich oil barons can live in the lap of luxury, while the consumers are going under.
Such support would be significant. Non-OPEC members Mexico, Norway and Russia last slashed production in the late 1990s, at a time oil was selling for about $10 a barrel.
Slashing production always raises prices for the consumers, by creating a false shortage. When the consumer has to wait hours in lines for gas, then they are not suppose to mind the higher prices they have to pay to get what they need. Where are the tea party guys when we need them? It's high time for a revolution. Lets all get our cars converted so that we will no longer need gas. It is not suppose to be hard to convert an car to hydrogen power, and to manufacture your own hydrogen at home, and any expense involved would quickly pay for itself.
But although Russian Deputy Premier Igor Sechin and Azeri Energy Minister Natik Aliev announced cutbacks of a total of more than 600,000 barrels a day, their commitments appeared largely symbolic, to OPEC the greed team.
The Russians indicated their reductions were already implemented in November, while Azerbaijan's output had already been reduced by about a third due to production problems earlier this year. They had rather not get involved in such scheming.
Among those hoping for Moscow's support was oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
"We also hope that other producers who are not in OPEC will chip in for the purpose of bringing stability to the market," said Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi said, in a nod to Russia. Oh, yes, by all means, get them into the "rich getting richer" game at the expense of the already strapped consumer.
Sechin, in comments to The Associated Press, said "Russian oil companies have already made a decision to cut deliveries to the market ... approximately equivalent to 350,000 barrels per day." But he specified that his country's cuts had already been enacted ahead of the OPEC meeting, so why should he have to make more cuts? It is pure and simple greed of the rich.
Sechin did hold out the possibility of further reductions, saying Russia was ready to pare another 320,000 barrels a day "if we see the continuation of the current level of prices on the world oil markets." Which means that he wants to be left alone to run his own country's business, which is the only fair and reasonable, attitude in the mix, but they insist on giving him a hard time.
But with Russian production falling, due in part to lagging investment, it was unclear whether some of the cuts enacted or proposed were simply a way of packaging Moscow's inability to keep up present output levels. Even before Sechin's comments, Russian output — now close to 10 million barrels a day — was expected to decline by 1 percent this year and by around 2 percent in 2009. So 2009 is already looking bad for consumers.
That — and the fact that Russia was announcing reductions already enacted — diminished the significance of its move. Therefore, the fat cats wants even a bigger move just for show, for the evil minded greedy bunch.
Sechin's vague comments on further cooperation with OPEC — he mentioned plans for possible "permanent observer status" without specifying what that meant — also signaled Moscow's reluctance to trade its traditional independence for closer ties with the 13-nation producers' group. The best policy for Russia would be to stay clear of the greedy money mongers.
Sechin did not rule out full membership eventually, but said, "We are not rushing." A member of the Russian delegation who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment was blunter, saying his country had no interest in joining OPEC,
which is the best thing possible for all concerns.
Aliev said his country "will support the OPEC cuts," slashing up to 300,000 barrels a day from Azerbaijan's output. That would be more than a third of total production for the country on the oil-rich Caspian Sea. I would love to see this whole thing back fire in their faces. Everyone should convert their vehicles to hydrogen or electric or solar voltics, or a combination, and leave them out in the cold whenever they expect to start producing again. No one would have need of their expensive gas by that time, and they would be setting there with millions of gallons of gas, and would have no place to sell it. Let's DO IT !
Still, Azerbaijan's proposed cuts may be involuntary. After an accident on the main BP pumping platform in October, oil industry analysts say the country's output has dropped to around 500,000 barrels a day — the level Aliev was proposing at Oran, is already done.
Consumers, it is time to get angry, very, very angry, angry enough to do something about it. Even if you would have to make a loan to convert your vehicles into non gas using cars, or truck, it would soon pay for itself in savings that you would get from not pouring your money to feed the fat cat oil industry. The amount you are saving could go to pay for the loan, which would make a permanent solution, to never have to buy another drop of gas. This would also make a huge difference in the ecology problems and pollution that is plaguing the earth now. Have your own silent protest setting in your garage, and don't by gas from these extortionist that is destroying the ecology of the earth, and robbing you blind. LETS DO IT, people !!!
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Associated Press writers Angela Charlton, Alfred de Montesquiou and Adam Schreck in Oran contributed to this report.