Adding a maximum withdrawal from the SPR even as Saudi Arabia opens their spigots would sure be helpful in a crisis. And how much oil is out there in Europe, Asia, and private floating reserves?
Such an effort to quietly buy and store oil would explain this puzzle:
Most Opec members would like to see lower prices, but there was little they could do as the market was responding to factors beyond supply and demand, the source said.
If those fundamentals dictated the price, oil would cost around $60 to $70 a barrel, the source said. The world oil market balance is similar to that in 1999, when the price was less than $20, he added.
Seriously, I keep hearing that we can count up to 15 or 20 dollars per barrel for war worries. How do we explain the consistent high price despite fundamentals that indicate prices should be half of what they are? Is it because oil is being purchased and stored? It is a strange shortage that doesn't actually lead to gas lines because gas stations can't purchase gasoline. That doesn't seem to be the problem. Yet prices are jumping up even as our economy slows and as we drive less.
And as long as I'm speculating, could we be building those long lead-time oil pumping machinery in case the Iranians wreck their own production facilities?
Orson Scott Card thinks President Bush may well be preparing to follow Lincoln's Plan B in 1864. President Lincoln worte this prior to the election:
This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probably [sic] that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the Government President elect, as to save the Union between the Election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.
I've wondered the same thing.
Have we come up with the mother of all plans to cope with the loss of Iranian oil from the market should we attack Iran?
