@TayoD

please could you explain that surplus? I'm interested in learning new things. Explain how refusal of OPEC to sell oil to the US will lead to surplus and reduction in crude oil prices.

A mere announcement by OPEC that it may stop selling crude to the US will send crude prices spiralling above $100/barrel. That is just an announcement, let alone when it is effected.

OPEC will not have any problems with the EU and the EU will not want to have any problems with OPEC.

So please, I'd like to hear this whole "syrplus" theory.

opec is here to stay for a long time. the US doesnt have the kind of muscle to do away wit opec anymore.

@denex,

please could you explain that surplus? I'm interested in learning new things. Explain how refusal of OPEC to sell oil to the US will lead to surplus and reduction in crude oil prices.
A mere announcement by OPEC that it may stop selling crude to the US will send crude prices spiralling above $100/barrel. That is just an announcement, let alone when it is effected.
OPEC will not have any problems with the EU and the EU will not want to have any problems with OPEC.
So please, I'd like to hear this whole "syrplus" theory.

The U.S. imports about 10.1 million barrels/day. About 5.6 million barrels of that is from OPEC. http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

OPEC on the other hand exports about 25 million barrels/day. That means the U.S. buys about 22% of OPEC’s production. http://www.peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13505


Now tell me what happens if your major market is no longer available? The fact is that your revenue goes down, unless of course you raise the price such that you now sell the remaining 78% to offset the unavailable market.

In other words, the rest of the world will bear the brunt of it as much as the US will. And may I remind you that Nigeria and most of these OPEC countries who import their fuel and petroleum products are going to be paying big time for them. Why would an exporter of refined products sell to any other country for less than they can sell it in the US? If due to the boycott, petrol sells for $5/liter in the US, why will I go sell it for $1/liter in Naija? I’d rather divert it to the US and make good money.

So you see, the world economy will be hit as a whole and not just the US.

Where will the US buy from if they boycott opec? with China and Idia's enegy appetite insatiable, the unquenchable quest for fossil feul continues and the US cannot afford to do shakara.

Even the americans themselves know this, it is just that it is fashionable for them to see white and call it black.

Can't wait to see them boycott OPEC!!!

The US consumes 40% of the World's oil output.Oil producers need them more than they need us.If you are in the bussiness of selling a product,your customers are extremely important to you,especially the biggest of all your customers.That is why most of the major oil producers are US allies.Hence any arrogant posturing smacks of shameless ignorance

I think the US is either foolish or playing to the gallery. A mere kidnapping of few people always upset their economy as if the whole nation is in custody. A slight Iranian treat would shot up oil prices across the world and US would groan. A suicide bombing in Iraq would not just kill their soldiers but equally raise tension on their soil. Just three countries out of eight others and they are trembling. Now, they want to ban all of them! How ironic? It is possible they want to try the resolve of OPEC to stay united. Let them go ahead. China will buy our oil, EU would be happy to pay euro and, let wait and see.

Did anyone tell George what happened during Murtala Muhamed regime? Maybe they have enough nukes to power their cars, homes, etc

TayoD:

@denex,
The US. imports about 10.1 million barrels/day. About 5.6 million barrels of that is from OPEC. http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

OPEC on the other hand exports about 25 million barrels/day. That means the US. buys about 22% of OPEC’s production. http://www.peakoil.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13505


Now tell me what happens if your major market is no longer available? The fact is that your revenue goes down, unless of course you raise the price such that you now sell the remaining 78% to offset the unavailable market.

In other words, the rest of the world will bear the brunt of it as much as the US will. And may I remind you that Nigeria and most of these OPEC countries who import their fuel and petroleum products are going to be paying big time for them. Why would an exporter of refined products sell to any other country for less than they can sell it in the US? If due to the boycott, petrol sells for $5/liter in the US, why will I go sell it for $1/liter in Naija? I’d rather divert it to the US and make good money.

So you see, the world economy will be hit as a whole and not just the US.

From your analysis US buys more than half of their oil need from OPEC which means that they can not afford to boycott the OPEC nations. If they do OPEC nations will surfer less and US will surfer more in the sense that it will give China the leeway to overtake them with a reasonable margin and beleive me China will buy the the % that US use to buy before and keep them as reserve. Its high time they realise that muscle flexing is nolonger in their favour.

I've already said it that the only way OPEC will suffer is if there's nobody else willing to buy what OPEC is selling. But as it is right now, if the USA stops buying crude from OPEC, there are other willing, eager and able buyers in the market who will not only start buying more from OPEC, but will maintain their current buying status from non-OPEC countries so it is the USA that will have great difficulty finding new sources of crude. We all know that the whole world including the USA is operating at maximum crude production. So where will they get the extra 5.6 million barrels from overnight?

presido1:

From your analysis US buys more than half of their oil need from OPEC which means that they can not afford to boycott the OPEC nations. If they do OPEC nations will surfer less and US will surfer more in the sense that it will give China the leeway to overtake them with a reasonable margin and beleive me China will buy the the % that US use to buy before and keep them as reserve. Its high time they realise that muscle flexing is nolonger in their favour.

This is bewildering.I was hoping that after my brief hiatus off NL,the posts will get more enlightened.It seems to be getting worse.If OPEC were to stop selling oil to the US,oil prices will get uniformly expensive across board.The US will try to find other suppliers of oil,most of the oil supply in todays markets come from non-OPEC nations.

The result will be an instant spike in oil prices followed by a global recession as poor countries come to grips with high prices.Even China will be seriously damaged.The idea that China will simply replace lost US demand is hugely uniformed sentiment.Even more silly,is the idea that the buyers of oil can be charged markedly different prices.

All TayoD was stating is the obvious.I don't know why people on this forum engage in spurious inane arguments totally unbecoming of "educated" people

I wonder then why the US is fiercely competing with China and India for crude. Why don't they just ask these non-OPEC countries to increase production for them to buy.

In fact, why doesn't the US increase it's own production if na beans?

if care is not taken on the part of the americans, within the next 20 to 30 years, if not less, they will become so irrelevant in world affairs, and will possess the odium personality of the earth

US politicians are merely looking for scape goat in OPEC to blame for problems caused by the greedy Oil Companies.   American people are paying record high prices of gasoline at the pump and the politicians know that 2008 is around the corner when they have to face the electorate for their votes in November.  So they have to show the public that they are working assiduosly to arrest the north-bound high prices of gasoline.

The fact remains however, that US politicians does not have the courage to call the bluff of the Oil companies which have been embarking on cosolidation in recent years.  According to experts, "In 1993, the five biggest refiners in the US. controlled 35% of the market. By 2004, they controlled 56%. In some regions of the country, a few refineries have an oligopoly on the market. In fact, a Senate report in 2002 reported "tight oligopolies" operating in 28 states."

With this type of market structure, each individual refinery can limit capacity and drive up prices.  And this is what the refineries have been doing: deliberately limiting capacity to shore up prices. 
It is not that the US does not have a law in place to guard against this unwholesome malpractice in the market palce. There is the Anti-trust law which prohibits this type of activity but the present administration, which has an unholy alliance with businesses cannot be trusted to move against the industries to sanitise the market.

The last time one of the big players in the industry  -  Exxon Mobil went public with its annual returns, it declared a whopping $36 billion profit after tax.  This happened at a time when the pubilc is reeling under a heavy financial constraint due to the amount of their disposable income being paid for gasoline at the pump.  And it was also a revelation when its Chairman was given a severance package of $400 million on retirement last year.

Surely, US politicians know that OPEC is not the problem but corporate greed, coupled with the lack of political will to go after the companies is the root cause of the matter.  Good enough analysts have predicted this law will die a natural death as was the case with similar ones enacted in the past.

Lets go with China and leave america to try and invent oil substitute.

I'm wondering why some people are on this forum if they are so anti-Nigeria and ridiculuously pro-America with all of their might and all of their being.

It's just their urge to feel among that is clouding their identity.

Woo people are still interested in American policy, upon all the crisis they have course for there selfish interest. How i wish OPEC will stop selling Crude oil in dollars.

Well, since the US is known to protect its interests at all cost let them just boycott the OPEC crude oil and let the world see how it will fare.

All the lies and bragging will amount to nothing if it is not bold enough to boycott the oil?

Afam:

Well, since the US is known to protect its interests at all cost let them just boycott the OPEC crude oil and let the world see how it will fare.

All the lies and bragging will amount to nothing if it is not bold enough to boycott the oil?

Abi o my brother

With all the beef Chavez is giving to the Americans they still buy crude from them not to talk of Ahamadijan of Iran, if they(US) feel they can do without OPEC and survive for two minutes they could have forgetten Chevez and Ahamadijan's crude far back. What the OPEC countried need to do is when next they will meet let them consider doing their business in Euro, only the mention of that will have a big impact in Wall Street.
Coming to Technology, US is not the only country that suply the tech know-how in that sector, France,Norway and Yukos of Russia are their and will like to benefit when the saga begins that is business and beleive me all this countries are waiting indirectly on the day the US will come to a stand still but they will not come out in the open to let you know. Nobody is happy about the way they control of everything not even UK. They can stop buying from OPEC and develop their hybrid which is not even cheap.
necessity is the mother of invention they if they withdraw their tech others will try to invent theirs that is it.

George Bush and Dick Cheney will never do anything to make the price of Crude Oil come down.
With the millions of barrels they've used Halliburton to stockpile from Iraq, anybody that wants to cause the price of Crude Oil to fall will be strongly resisted by the WhiteHouse.

Even as George Bush leaves in 2008, he nurtures great fear of what will happen to his precious oil price IF he leaves office to the democrats.

For those that do not know that George Bush is consciously fuelling tensions with Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Russia in order to keep Crude Oil prices high and make Halliburton rich, better wake up from your sleep. JUDGE Bush is a member of OPEC even though the USA is not.

denex:

JUDGE Bush is a member of OPEC even though the USA is not.

Indirectly abi

IN FACT TO HELL WITH US

@presido1

yes O! For those who do not know, JUDGE Bush and Dick Cheney are among a small group of people coallescing to keep the price of oil high so that they can maximise profits and sell the commodity at outrageous prices.

The rest of OPEC is just lucky to have this situation but they had no hand in creating it.

mi broda no tell dem
the foolish america lovers!

Abeg forget George Bush. A man who could supply arms to Arab terrorists, and then fuel a war against them so he could continue his clandestines does not have much credibility to start with. So whatever America is saying about OPEC is pure balderdash.

An orgy of hare-brained, tripe-filled,crass anti-Americanism has descended here. This is an inane spectacle reflecting the innate human tendency to dispense with reason when in the grip of blinding prejudice.

I-man, you have not said anything. Just a string of high-sounding words that are not cohesive. Don't give yourself cause to be cool-high.

Chiori:

I-man, you have not said anything. Just a string of high-sounding words that are not cohesive.

Here comes cohesion:

Chiori:

Abeg forget George Bush. A man who could supply arms to Arab terrorists, and then fuel a war against them so he could continue his clandestines does not have much credibility to start with. So whatever America is saying about OPEC is pure balderdash.

According to the above,Bush sells weapons to Arab terrorists and then "fuel" a war against them to continue his "clandestines". I have seen greater cohesion from a retarded drunk.

Bush wants to continue his clandestines? You are having a laugh.

go to google search engine, type "the bush family" and then click on the "I Feel Lucky" button. then you will know what i am talking about

Chiori:

I-man, you have not said anything. Just a string of high-sounding words that are not cohesive. Don't give yourself cause to be cool-high.

It seems that you don't know I-man well. Maybe as 4Play sha.

He hardly says anything. All he does is come down on anyone or indeed anything that says anything not soothing to the US, UK or Israel.

When he is not doing that then he is agreeing with everything the likes of TayoD and Davidylan say regardless of the correctness or otherwise.

So, don't expect him to tackle the issues, infact you ain't seen nothing yet

@I-man

you too much! Even as you dey curse us, my mind jus' dey sweet me because of the big,big grammar wey you dey blow.

Abeg I'm not even offended. I have never seen anybody dish out insults with such class. I must say I'm impressed.

NOW, CAN YOU PLEASE TRANSLATE?!