Forget About Iran, Canada a Bigger Risk to Oil Market, Energy Trader Says

Forget About Iran, Canada a Bigger Risk to Oil Market, Energy Trader Says

The eyes of the world are fixed on the election protests in Iran. Yet, while unrest reigns in one of the world’s largest oil producers, crude prices have actually fallen below $70 a barrel. Stephen Schork, editor of The Schork Report, says that’s because traders have already priced in the risk.

Get this: The big risk to prices, Schork says, comes from our friendly neighbors to the north. Canada is America’s biggest supplier of oil - most of it coming from tar sands. The problem, according to Schork, is that the Obama administration has taken “a rather belligerent stance” toward that supply because it’s not environmentally friendly. If the administration increased taxes on Canadian oil it “could be displaced...that will have an uplift to prices,” he goes on to say.

And, don’t forget the risk south of the border. Maturing oil fields, drug cartels and political instability in Mexico have the potential to drive up prices. If the U.S. doesn’t pay more attention to these risk factors, investment will continue to dry up and leave us paying more at the pump, Schork warns.

So while everyone is focused on geopolitical “hot-spots” like Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela, the real risk to crude prices may be much closer to home.

Is Hugo Chavez already getting hurt by the drop in Oil prices?

Chavez orders halt to construction of Caracas mall

"They had already built a monster there," Chavez said. "I passed by there just recently and said, 'What is this? My God!'" Hugo Chavez Profile on BBC.com

So the often-impulsive president told an allied mayor to halt construction and said this prime block of urban real estate should be expropriated. He said the sprawling six-story building might be put to better use as a hospital or university.The exercise in drive-by socialism illustrates Chavez's tendency to govern from his gut, and to leap in when he thinks other government agencies -- in this case city planners -- aren't doing their job. Read more of this story on Yahoo news..

El Mall más grande y divertido de Latinoamérica.
El Centro Sambil presenta a los visitantes una perfecta combinación de tiendas con amenas y divertidas opciones de entretenimiento, cines, restaurantes, terrazas al aire libre para disfrutar de música en vivo y de variados menús y mucho, mucho más...... 5 niveles con más de 500 comercios que se esmeran de hacer de cada visita una experiencia sin igual.