This was on the front page of the IEA website today:

“Financial Times, 08 June 2007

Claude Mandil, Executive Director of the IEA, said to the Financial Times that "biofuels would pose no threat to Opec", and that even in the worst case-scenario for the oil cartel, there would be a dramatic need for them to an increase production, so "Opec has nothing to fear". Mr. Mandil said he sees the need for oil, continuing to grow, and the IEA forecast that global oil demand in 2015 would rise by close to 10m barrels a day to 94.8m b/d.”

HA! HA! Boy, I bet those OPEC guys are terrified of corn ethanol.


This was on the front page of yahoo news today:

There is adequate crude oil in the market and commercial oil inventories are at a high level, Iranian Minister of Petroleum Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh told reporters on the sideline of a regional oil and gas conference here.

"There is sufficient crude oil in the market, there is no shortage of crude oil," he said when asked ifOPEC should raise supplies to the market to ease high oil prices. "Commercial oil stocks are at a very high level, at a comfortable level. The reason for the price hike is not the level of the crude oil stocks. It's not that problem."

Which data point is this guy reading from? OECD inventories are down to 53 days of supply and the U.S. EIA predicts inventories will decline to 50 days by December 2007.

This was the front page of Bloomberg new today:

“Crude oil rose more than $1 a barrel after Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter, told Asian refiners that it would curb shipments for a ninth month in July.”

Didn’t Saudi Arabia say they had 3 million barrels excess production available? Then why cut their contract supply customer’s oil shipments?

Confused? You are meant to be.

Yours for a better world,

Mentatt (at) yahoo (dot) com