muddysmind.com

hopefully once drilling in anwr begins it'll drive them down further...unfortunately, that's going to be sometime. Then again if it has been approved 4 years ago, oil prices might not be this high now.

Interesting side note, the area of anwr which will be drileld in (which is less than 0.1% of the total acreage of anwr) was actually set aside for oil drilling when anwr ws first set aside as a wildlife refuge.

drilling in anwar wouldnt do anything to gas prices, if we started tommorow it would probably be at least 5 years before the first barrel reached market. most of the oil that comes from anwar would go to japan and forigen markets anyway.

I realy wish this were true, but I actualy head a new report here in Los Angeles that we should expect gas prices to go up an additional 15 cents next month..I am already paying $2.50+. This is getting out of control.

Mooseboy: in case you didn't read my entire comment, I said take some time before it goes down.

Even if anwr oil goes to other markets, that's okay because it relieves the supply side issues. We'd also see some big drops if we'd actually build a damned refinery or 3 (Something we haven't doe in 25 years in this country, in fact we've closed some!) and settle on one blend of gasoline for the whole country.

The reason oil prices are so high is the huge demand explosion particularly in places like China. Anything you can do to relieve the pressures of the demand outweighing supply would lower prices. Another step is to find a viable alternative source of fuel for cars, and go (oh my God, I'm gonna use a dirty word) nuclear on power plants instead of using coal and oil.

Drilling for oil in anwr will also create competitive pressures driving prices downs lightly (not enough to do much damage to prices but a little.)

Sort term movements are not really interesting to comment.
The facts are oil used to stand around 25-35 dollars for quite a long time in the 90's. It now is way over 40.
AND there is no unused capacity from OPEC countries.

My bet is that oil prices will fall very strongly in 2006 together with the world economy.
The main reason of high oil prices is overheating asia and unreined spending in the USA. When the world debt bubble burst things will change dramatically.

On an aside, I figured you would have posted something about all those irakians demonstrating today against american occupation in Bagdad.
That would have echoed to your post on those berliners who wanted the wall back.

Short term movements are not really interesting to comment.
The facts are oil used to stand around 25-35 dollars for quite a long time in the 90's. They are now way over 40.
AND there is no unused capacity from OPEC countries. Production is at full capacity, refineries work at full capacity, oil tankers move at full capacity. No spare capacity anyway in the oil supply chain.

My bet is that oil prices will fall very strongly in 2006 together with the world economy.
The main reason of high oil prices is overheating asia and unreined spending in the USA. When the world debt bubble burst things will change dramatically.

On an aside, I figured you would have posted something about those tens of thousands irakians demonstrating today against american occupation in Bagdad.
That would have echoed to your post on those berliners who wanted the wall back.

My wonders are how many were not actually Iraqi and also how many were people jus thtere to see what the hell was going on.

Overall, not that interesting really since hey, freed peoples never care unless they had to fight for it themselves.

Don't worry Sky, I bet a huge lot of freed iraqis will care when the US troops leave !
:-)

"I figured you would have.... against american occupation in Bagdad."

Well first of all, we are not *occupying* Bagdad or any other part of Iraq nor Iraq as a whole. There is a difference between occupying and liberating - a HUGE difference. Besides, in the words of Safia Taleb al-Suhail - who is one of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates:

"we were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. ... Thank you to the American people who paid the cost ... but most of all to the soldiers."

Besides...I think most Iraqis - like Safia Taleb al-Suhail - are and will continue to be gratful for the help everyone in the coalition has given them.

df: sure they will if we leave without finishing the job and another tyrant takes over.