Experts To Congress: Iran Sanctions Fuel High Gasoline Prices
Source: Dow Jones Newswires
By Tennille Tracy, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration joined a panel of energy experts Thursday in dismissing the idea that a "quick fix" could reduce U.S. gasoline prices, saying instead that rising demand for oil around the world and supply concerns stemming from Iran sanctions are driving prices at the pump.
EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht, speaking at a Senate hearing on gasoline prices, said many experts believe these trends will continue "and that's really a combination that affecting the market."
Gruenspecht and a panel of other experts also downplayed the role of speculative trading in the oil markets--an issue that Democrats increasingly point to as a cause for crude-oil price spikes. Gruenspecht said it was unclear whether profit-driven oil traders were pushing up prices, while Barclays Capital Managing Director Paul Horsnell said they played no role at all.
The idea that speculative traders are making oil more expensive is a "minority view," Horsnell said. "And I think it's an incorrect view based on faulty analysis."
Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/experts-to-congress-iran-sanctions-fuel-high-gasoline-prices-20120329-01205
pinto
(106,886 posts)Country - Barrels per day - Share of world %
Arab League - 24,171,503 - 29.71%
1 Russia - 10,540,000 - 12.01%
2 Saudi Arabia - 8,800,000 - 10.06%
3 United States - 7,800,000 - 8.91%
4 Iran - 4,172,000 - 4.77%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
AtopTheRacismNow
(13 posts)Of oil
pinto
(106,886 posts)Mine is why the relatively smaller scale of Iranian exports should effect markets so much?
Hawkowl
(5,213 posts)TEHRAN -- Iran is flush with huge oil reserves and cash, but a refinery shortage leaves it heavily dependent on imported gasoline and diesel to keeps its cars and trucks rolling.
That's one reason the country -- already beset with economic troubles -- is desperate to avoid UN sanctions over its
nuclear program.
``Oil is where Iran is most vulnerable," said Behzad Nabavi, a former lawmaker who also headed a state-directed oil
company, Petropars. ``It's one of the great economic paradoxes."
http://articles.boston.com/2006-06-01/news/29247574_1_iran-imports-behzad-nabavi-islamic-revolution
Apparently, Gruenspecht, and the other powers that be will say anything to obfuscate that it IS SPECULATION, that is keeping gasoline so high. That and it is a openly colluding cartel jamming the high prices up our collective asses for record profits, zero taxes, and record subsidies.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)and is rarely (very, very rarely) done by taking physical delivery of the commodity. Put and call options have no effect whatsoever on the price of oil. Oil companies keeping tankers offshore and delaying deliveries can directly affect the supply of oil and therefor prices. Oil companies can also be purchasers of options and at the same time manipulate the market. It's the oil companies that are the crooked speculators and we give them tax breaks and subsidies to boot.
Response to Purveyor (Original post)
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JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)I believe he's fruitier than a nutcake.