Quote from: RE on Apr 08, 2025, 07:12 PMNot gonna be fracking much oil @ $57/bbl.

Oil prices falling into zone that discourages production xpensive stuf

https://www.axios.com/2025/04/08/oil-prices-production-growth

RE

Growth was easing up anyway, even at $70. Some signs of decreasing productivity at the geological level are showing up already, anyone with data and looking at it has known it for almost a year now. All good things must come to an end, cycles of development run their course until the next technology/geology/economic combination shows up to go after the more expensive stuff. Even that stuff was edging into the limelight when oil was in the $100+ range pre-2015....but then the resulting price drop from the US developing more normal oil...again...happened. So we'll have to wait for the price to go back up to let the shales run their course, and THEN all the other more expensive oils might get a chance.

This growing disconnect is fueling serious concerns that widespread oil futures complacency could be risking global supply chains and credit markets and potentially setting up the next major supply shock.  Goldman Sachs recently warned of a disconnect in the oil markets, offering potential scenarios of what the rest of 2026 could look like, not just for the crude market, but refined products, such as jet fuel and petrochemicals. The potential paths the rest of 2026 might take range from a mere economic hiccup to catastrophe.

So which is it gonna be, sportsfans?  HICCUP or CATASTROPHY?

In my grand tradition as a confirmed Doomer, I'm betting on Catastrophe. 😬

Sooner or later the  physical shortages are gonna catch up to the rosy picture painted by Trumpolini.  Meanwhile, his buddies will continue to rake in the moolah in market manipulation of the NACHO trade.

Meanwhile, futures markets rise and fall based on a different host of speculative factors, including President Trump's often contradictory late-night posts on Truth Social, which seem purely for market manipulation, rather than anything approaching an accurate assessment of the situation.

Trumpworld insiders are making hundreds of millions on every announcement, with a $1.7 billion short on oil placed one hour before Wednesday's bombshell report in Axios, after which crude plunged 7%.

RE

You will note at the end of this article from the Smartest Guys in the Room at the IEA that they STILL assume a deal to end the war will be reached and the Black Gold will once again flow freely into the tanks of Happy Motorists around the world.  EXCEPT EVERYBODY KNOWS already that even IF some kind of deal is reached to end the war that the flow will never go back to the pre-War levels due to insurance issues at the very least.  No sign whatsoever that the war will be over anytime soon, so WTF base your assumptions on this fantasy?

By the Nov elections the true state of the oil market will be patently obvious.  Trumpsky will be lucky if he only gets Impeached.

RE

Oil and shipping markets remain on edge as Hormuz disruptions increasingly look structural rather than temporary, with insurers, shipowners, and traders losing confidence in U.S. security guarantees. The world is entering a fragmented new trade order where maritime access and energy flows are becoming tied to geopolitical alignment instead of open global markets.

It's about time someone in the MSM said out loud what EVERYBODY KNOWS, which is that oil shipping is NEVER going back to the status quo antebellum.  Hormuz is just the tip of the iceberg, there are numerous places on shipping routes where  tankers can be threatened with Piracy or interdiction.  China certainly will not accept the FSoA blockading Iranian Oil from heading to Chinese ports over the long term.  On the other side, as long as Iran can sell its Oil to China, Trumpolini's blockade doesn't fulfill the intended purpose of starving Iran of funds.  Who gets the oil produced anywhere but inside their own borders is now subject to the political vicissitudes of who is aligned with who.  The possibility of wars escalating past the Proxy War level has increased by orders of magnitude.  Xi made that clear in his statement about the Taiwan situation.

It's hard to figure how the new reality will be priced in to the cost of shipping insurance and then further to the price of oil.  A single market price for delivery is no longer possible, since each route has a different level of risk associated, and each transaction depends on who the buyer & seller are & where the vessel is flagged.  Needless to say, that makes for a very confusing market situation, and even without overt hostilities in play energy movement  around the globe will be seriously impacted.

It's a whole different world now, and there is no going back.

RE

Silence is the best plan.

The end is nigh. All China and Iran have to do  is wait while America's fuel cost induces total collapse.  Trump does not care, and it does not matter anyway because he is well into a second childhood.  Trump is an ineffective dead wait.  He started this shit and his incompetence will now cause America to collapse from his own blowback.

QuoteWe are screwed through the rest of the year.

In the Irish potato famine ships loaded with grain sailed from Irish ports.  Now history will repeat as oil exports will be more profitable than keeping what Joe Six Pack pays at the pump under six bucks.  People who own are going to make out big.  And AI means you will no longer have a personal computer soon.  It will all be subscription to data-centers behind your keyboard and screen.  And it is happening because people are too stupid to give a shit.  The AI bubble is the total failure of NI Natural Intelligence.  The Rentier economy is the end game.  Rent-seeking and exploitation by companies is Joe's future.  If Joe does not plug into the system he/she will have no life.







And you don't have to travel to a Greek cave and sniff fumes to see this future.

Quote from: K-Dog on May 17, 2026, 07:01 PMAnd AI means you will no longer have a personal computer soon.  It will all be subscription to data-centers behind your keyboard and screen.

The only thing most people use a computer for nowadays is as a glorified TV and Phone anyhow.  That's why all they have is a Smart Phone and tablet and don't bother with a laptop.  Laptops are only used by people with White Collar jobs and students who are training for those jobs.  As long as they can view & send video, take & share pictures, chat & send emoticons and use it as a calculator to do basic math to total their spending while shopping, that is all they need.

Thing is of course, what good is having a laptop today in Cuba or Iran or Ukraine or most of Africa?  How often is the power on to charge it up and use it?  How many years away are we from most of Eastern Europe, SE Asia and S & C America being in the same condition?  Of course it's still pretty far away in the Belly of the Beast here in the FSoA, W. Europe, China and Russia, but the conflicts and collapse of trade will get to these places in due time also.  The sand is running down in the hourglass as we speak.

I also wonder how long they'll manage to keep the high tech war going?  Hell, a few weeks of just bombing parts of Iran and they were running short of Ammo.  How long would the munitions factories keep running in a war with China, even without Nukes?  How long would the Aircraft Carrier Groups stay floating?  How long would the electrical grid stay intact?  Where will the AI data centers get their juice from?

Personally, I have an Air Gapped Win 10 computer I keep around for when the net goes down and I just need a machine to write on and stay entertained doing 3D design or playing old games on CD-ROM.  However, I only am likely to live for another decade or so, and  the electricity up here hopefully will last that long.

RE