Oil prices fall as US facilities restart (though recession worries remain)

[Deja Q]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/12539577.htm

EDITH BALAZS

Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary - Crude oil prices eased Friday and gasoline futures fell for the first time in a week as investors engaged in mild profit taking. Providing some reassurance was news that several energy facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast started up again after Hurricane Katrina.

Japan, meanwhile, said it was considering releasing some of its strategic stockpiles to meet shortages in the United States. And EU security affairs chief Javier Solana said European Union members are making offers to provide oil to the United States from their strategic reserves.

But in an ominous sign, crude oil contracts from November thru February - traditionally high demand months - were all trading above $70 a barrel.

(snip)

Recent high oil prices could trim economic growth worldwide if they remain at current levels, Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, a policy research organization in Washington, said Friday.

Bergsten said the three global recessions since World War II were all driven by spikes in oil prices, and although the world economy is currently very strong, the current jump in oil prices looks pretty serious.

"This could certainly dampen growth by a percentage point or two, and if it does, then you're getting pretty close to a global turndown," he told Dow Jones Newswires after giving a speech in Tokyo.


Article has more.

[TheFarseer]

1. If I were a foreign government

I would make releasing strategic stockpiles contingent on the US government taking REAL steps towards conservation or alternative energy.

[Deja Q]

5. We should have been doing that in 1982...

Instead of calling alternatve energy "obsolete" and dismantling federal programs - just how reagan HAD done.

[Dhalgren]

2. What "energy facilities" have started up again on the Gulf Coast?

Are they talking about some that were shut down prior to the storm near the Florida and Texas coast, but were basically undamaged? Surely to the gods, with people dying by the truck load in NO and MS from neglect and greed and incompetence, resources wouldn't be directed to get the oil wells pumping? Surely our priorities are...oh forget it...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. "Mild Profit Taking"

Says it all. Head on pike poles at the entrance to the cities seems like an appropriate reaction right now.

Unleash the crows so they can set to picking at them as well.

[LostinVA]

4. Really? Then why are prices still going UP???

I understand how futures speculation works: they go up, gas prices at the pump go up. They should work the other way around....