Traders Take to Oil Tankers (Barrons Video)

Traders Take to Oil Tankers (Barrons Video)
6/11/2009

(Video) Barron's Steve Sears discusses how traders are buying oil tanker stocks to profit from rising oil prices.

Rising Oil Prices Will Benefit Offshore Drillers

Rising Oil Prices Will Benefit Offshore Drillers 3/31/2009

Deepwater drillers Transocean, Diamond and Noble will be key beneficiaries as oil supplies get tighter and prices trend higher.

Averting the next energy crisis: The demand challenge. The McKinsey Report

Averting the next energy crisis: The demand challenge. The McKinsey Report
Global energy-demand growth is expected to flatten in the short term but will rebound with recovery. Indeed, there is potential for liquids-demand growth to outpace that of supply—risking a new spike in oil as soon as 2010 to 2013, depending on the depth of the economic downturn.
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/next_energy_crisis/index.asp

By registering on the McKinsey site you can download all these reports for free.
Chapter 1: Energy demand set to rebound after short lull
Since GDP is the most important driver of energy demand and the trajectory of world economic growth is exceedingly uncertain, the report presents several scenarios for energy-demand growth to give a feel for the range of outcomes possible. It examines energy-demand growth across end-use sectors and regions and by fuel type.
Launch this chapter (PDF - 1.03 MB)

Chapter 2: Liquids-demand tightness could return between 2010 and 2013
Liquids demand will be stagnant in the short term due to impact of high prices in 2007 and the credit squeeze. MGI’s moderate case projects that liquids demand will grow only weakly by 0.4 percent in 2009 but will rebound in 2010 to post growth of 2.1 percent.
Launch this chapter (PDF - 1.05 MB)

Chapter 3: Sectoral demand outlooks
Light-duty vehicles
The light-duty vehicles sector accounts for about 70 percent of the total road-transport sector, which is crucial to gaining an understanding the evolution of petroleum. MGI finds that energy demand from light vehicles is set to grow at 1.9 per annum to 2020. Adding to energy demand is extremely rapid growth in the vehicle stock in China, the Middle East, and India. However, robust new-vehicle efficiency standards—particularly but not exclusively in developed countries—offset this trend.
Launch this chapter (PDF - 1.47 MB)

Exxon Mobil breaks its own mark for full-year profit

Exxon Mobil shatters US record for annual profit
Exxon Mobil breaks its own mark for full-year profit, but fourth-quarter results tumble

HOUSTON (AP) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. on Friday reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.
The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.
The extraordinary full-year profit wasn't a surprise given crude's triple-digit price for much of 2008, peaking near an unheard of $150 a barrel in July. Since then, however, prices have fallen roughly 70 percent amid a deepening global economic crisis.
In the fourth quarter alone crude tumbled 60 percent, prompting spending and job cuts in an industry that was reporting robust, often record, profits as recently as last summer.

Peak oil warning

Peak oil warning (2 minute Video Report from Reuters)

Dec 16 - UK companies warn government against an impending oil supply crisis.

A recent report from the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security warns that supplies of cheap, easily accessible oil will start to diminish by 2013.
The industry lobby group, which includes Virgin, Yahoo, Solarcentury and transport operator Stagecoach, wants the Government to dramatically increase investment in clean energy and renewables to avoid an energy crisis.

Russia and its Economic woes

From La Russophobe - The Kremlin Panics

It’s hard to imagine a single act the Kremlin could take that would more conclusively demonstrate its total failure of economic policy, and its abject panic as a result, than to announce it is considering becoming a member of OPEC — which is exactly what the Kremlin did last week. Medvedev sounded like the Nazi hordes were at the barricades and it was Moscow’s 11th hour.
And maybe it was.
Openly admitting that Russia is fighting for its life, that its ability to sustain itself depends totally on the price of a commodity set by international markets, “President” Medvedev indicated he had no choice but to undercut Russian sovereignty still further by ceding the decision as to how much oil Russian can sell and when to the Arab petrostates.
By doing so, Russia would not only give up a massive amount of control over its own economic policy, it would burn its bridges with Europe and the United States, becoming a formal part of an organization which, subsequently, would be viewed no differently than the Warsaw Pact was during the cold war with the USSR.
And make no mistake: There is no “solution” in OPEC membership for Russia, only a desperate bid to delay collapse. Russia cannot afford to simply stop selling oil for long periods in order to bid up the price, as the OPEC nations can. Russia is not like them. It has a huge population that is desperately impoverished, and it is trying to wage cold war with the West through an arms race. Read the whole article from the La Russophobe Blog

Special Extra: From La Russophobe: The Final Countdown on the Russian Stock Market

Special Extra: The Final Countdown on the Russian Stock Market

The Russian market has lost all crediblity as the result of so many arbitrary, panicked closures by the Kremlin (on average, two every week since August), especially since they have been useless in halting the slide, revealing the Kremlin to be impotent. Shockingly, the value of the ruble has remained totally stable this week, but only because the Kremlin has now spent nearly $60 billion of the Russian people’s vital nest egg, almost $1 billion each and every day, creating artificial value for the nation’s currency to stave off even more intense consumer price inflation. Consumer price inflation has already topped a sickening 12%, and the year is not even over yet. The old Russian bugaboo, unpaid wages, has again reared its head, with arrearages increased by a horrifying 33% in October.

Amsterdam 21 Nov 2008. We are beginnnig to gather resources and track what's actually happening in this mysterious country a few thousand miles east of us. We read of course about the panic closures of the stock market and we saw something on TV of Russian billionaires losing lots of money. But it is still a research item.

MICEX (Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange Rates)