Gas Prices in Detroit Falls Below $2 Per Gallon

[Scottathew]

I've heard people cite two reasons for low prices:

1) ISIS taking over oil fields and flooding the market with cheap oil
2) OPEC increasing production to lower prices so that US and Canada production is no longer worth it, as the production methods are more expensive than middle eastern sources.

[Cliffy]

I've heard people cite two reasons for low prices:

1) ISIS taking over oil fields and flooding the market with cheap oil
2) OPEC increasing production to lower prices so that US and Canada production is no longer worth it, as the production methods are more expensive than middle eastern sources.

It runs deeper then that. They want to fuck with Russia so this will be done to put Russia in financial ruin. Its nothing to do with supply and demand.

[Jimaz]

It runs deeper then that. They want to fuck with Russia so this will be done to put Russia in financial ruin. Its nothing to do with supply and demand.

Yeah, they're hurting. I read Putin? cancelled their traditional Christmas break because the big wigs had to do some emergency work on their economy. Ruble's down 40%.

[Scottathew]

It runs deeper then that. They want to fuck with Russia so this will be done to put Russia in financial ruin. Its nothing to do with supply and demand.

Interesting! Makes sense. And the republicans wanted to start a war with Russia, while Obama's diplomacy\sanction route seems to be working very effectively.

Russia needs to go down a notch. I'm angry that America got involved in so many wars, but we haven't tried to annex any territory, we just take stable and semi-stable countries and destabilize so that terrorists can move in [[the exact opposite of stated goals...).

[JBMcB]

hey want to fuck with Russia so this will be done to put Russia in financial ruin.

Who? OPEC? They haven't increased production. The US has increased oil production a tiny amount, but in the grand scheme it makes little difference. So if it has "nothing to do with supply and demand" how are the prices being forced down?

I heard a large component of the oil price drop was investors were buying options at ridiculous prices hoping demand would surge in Europe, but that never happened, and the futures market collapsed.

[Honky Tonk]

Who? OPEC? They haven't increased production. The US has increased oil production a tiny amount, but in the grand scheme it makes little difference. So if it has "nothing to do with supply and demand" how are the prices being forced down?

According to the Noose media OPEC munipulates pricing by controlling production. If there's a reserve, [[and right now there is) they'll slow down production. If reserves are down, they increase production to meet demands. Right now reserves are up but OPEC hasn't slowed production, forcing prices down. The big question is "why?". Speculation is to make Ruski oil and Western "Frucking" less cost effective. [[Big Oil won't continue frucking for pennies on the dollar). In Russia's case, their economy is now in serious trouble. My own personal conspiracy theory is it's a US/OPEC joint to sanction Russia. My only question is what was promised in return?

[canuck]

According to the Noose media OPEC munipulates pricing by controlling production. If there's a reserve, [[and right now there is) they'll slow down production. If reserves are down, they increase production to meet demands. Right now reserves are up but OPEC hasn't slowed production, forcing prices down. The big question is "why?". Speculation is to make Ruski oil and Western "Frucking" less cost effective. [[Big Oil won't continue frucking for pennies on the dollar). In Russia's case, their economy is now in serious trouble. My own personal conspiracy theory is it's a US/OPEC joint to sanction Russia. My only question is what was promised in return?

Alberta oil sands production is particularly vulnerable to the lower prices because below a certin threshhold it just isn't worth it. It takes one barrel of oil in energy to suck out 2 in the oil patch of gooeyness. They are already laying off people in the servicing industry around big oil in Alberta and Saskatchewan like catering, etc...

A friend of mine came back from working as a painter in Edmonton and found that salaries in construction trades was actually lower than Montreal and that the cost of living was pretty high, except that their tax burden is much lower.

Canada also has an equalization system where the rich provinces contribute to the less fortunate ones via a federal transfer of funds...
Quebec gets a lot of money from that. Ontario too in the past 10 years or so with industrial decline in certain areas has profited from the "Have provinces."

[JBMcB]

According to the Noose media OPEC munipulates pricing by controlling production.

They certainly try to. They haven't been super-effective since the 70's oil crisis.

If there's a reserve, [[and right now there is) they'll slow down production. If reserves are down, they increase production to meet demands. Right now reserves are up but OPEC hasn't slowed production, forcing prices down.

Right, so demand is drying up, mainly due to the economic slowdown in Europe and China.

The big question is "why?". Speculation is to make Ruski oil and Western "Frucking" less cost effective.

Another explanation is the member countries and companies of OPEC like making money. Cutting production *may* increase profits later on - usually the price starts creeping back up significantly in a year or so. However, if they maintain production, they make money *now*. Try asking a sales guy to try to sell less of something to bring the price up.

My own personal conspiracy theory is it's a US/OPEC joint to sanction Russia. My only question is what was promised in return?

An interesting theory, however, from a political standpoint, OPEC is a basket case. You've got Venezuela and Iran who are buddies and "friends" with Russia, Iraq who hates Iran AND Russia, Saudi Arabia who also hates Iran but is ambivalent towards Russia, the UAE who could care less about Russia...

Convincing them all to gang up on Russia would be insanely difficult at best. It's hard for them to all agree on much of anything.

[ABetterDetroit]

An interesting theory, however, from a political standpoint, OPEC is a basket case. You've got Venezuela and Iran who are buddies and "friends" with Russia, Iraq who hates Iran AND Russia, Saudi Arabia who also hates Iran but is ambivalent towards Russia, the UAE who could care less about Russia...

This statement is so far off base to the current state of world affairs it sounds like it came out of the first world war but I will only pick one.

"Iraq who hates Iran". Which Iraq are you talking about? The Sunni dominated dictatorship of the 1980s who fought a war with Iran maybe? Well it isn't the 1980s anymore, as a matter of fact a whole lot of things have changed since then. You must be the only one who missed it but there was another war that happened since then that toppled that government. To fill you in, long story short, the result of that war was a Shiite dominated government in Iraq. Relations with Iran have improved immensely since those events have taken place. Next up for bringing you into this century on just this subject would be the current civil war in Iraq but frankly I don't have the time.

[Honky Tonk]

They certainly try to. They haven't been super-effective since the 70's oil crisis.

That's why gasoline prices have fallen below the $2 mark, Russia's economy is on the skids and will take @ least 2 years to recover, Frucking Industry CEO's are walking alleys, picking up cans and bottles, and oil towns in Texas, ND, and Oklahoma are saying "so THIS is what recession means!!!" because OPEC is so "powerless".