Article

2011-02-03 International-UN-NGOs

Oil Gains a 2nd Day as Egypt Unrest Prompts Concern

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Posted by Steve White 2011-02-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 I'm with Donald Trump on this one.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-02-03 01:52|| 2011-02-03 01:52|| Front Page Top

#2 ISRAEL NN > WORLD BANK CHIEF: HARD TO KNOW WHAT [outcome]WILL HAPPEN IN EGYPT, + ME Region.

* SAME > EL-BARADEI: DEMOCRATIC EGYPT WILL NOT BE THREAT TO EGYPT [or the USA].

* SAME > ANALYST: UNITED STATES HUMILIATED MUBARAK. POTUS Bammer's demand for Mubarak to resign ASAP.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2011-02-03 02:23|| na 2011-02-03 02:23|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm actually pretty sanguine today that the Canal is safe, and this isn't going to infect the oil-producing regions, excepting maybe Algeria.

On the other hand, a food price shock seems to be in full effect, with word of various autocratic and authoritarian regimes hording the hell out of grain stocks in the wake of the two Maghreb uprisings. I say that it is a moral imperative that the US terminates the ethanol subsidy, immediately.

Posted by Mitch H. 2011-02-03 09:52|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ 2011-02-03 09:52|| Front Page Top

#4 Terminating the ethanol subsidy isn't going to do anything about the price of wheat; there isn't enough overlap between the corn belts and the wheat belts to matter in the first place.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-02-03 12:34|| 2011-02-03 12:34|| Front Page Top

#5 Overlap between corn and wheat belts - more 'n you'd think. I do technical and customer support for agricultural databases, with an emphasis on soil test data. Insofar as growers don't switch between the two in the corn belt, it's a cultural thing rather than a scientific thing. Although they don't double-crop wheat and soy in the deep cornbelt the way they do in the Mid-Atlantic.

Corn certainly has been displacing cotton in the Delta, and wheat used to be a significant secondary crop down in cotton country. I say "used to" only because we lost our major Delta country reseller three years back, and I don't deal with the Delta as much as I used to do. Not sure what they're up to these days - in 2008, it was the big, big push into corn for ethanol.

Anyways, corn and wheat can be demand-substituted, as well as imperfectly supply-substituted. When you're a bureaucrat stockpiling staples for His Excellency's rainy riot day fund, you'll buy whatever is cheapest, and if wheat's expensive-because-rare-due-to-bad-harvests and corn's priced out of your range due to ethanol (ptui!), you grab rice, which inflates because you and every other tinpot's bureaucratic purchasing agents are scrabbling for your respective hoards.

Posted by Mitch H. 2011-02-03 13:42|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ 2011-02-03 13:42|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm with Donald Trump on this one.

He's probably right with the caveat that while OPEC might not be the least effective cartel in the history of the planet they're certainly in the running for that title. The ongoing implosion of the dollar and all of the world's fast money seeking safe havens from said event almost certainly have a much greater impact on oil prices than does OPEC.

Posted by AzCat 2011-02-03 16:44|| 2011-02-03 16:44|| Front Page Top

#7 I don't think the events in Tunisia and Egypt will affect OPEC at all.

Posted by gorb 2011-02-03 17:08|| 2011-02-03 17:08|| Front Page Top

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