Global Warming brings heating-fuel costs down! See, a silver lining!

[Philosoraptor]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPQ8VxvCfCvQ&refer=home
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil may fall next week, extending a 12 percent decline from mid-December, as mild U.S. weather reduces heating-fuel demand in the world's biggest energy consumer.

Fourteen of 29 analysts, traders and brokers, or 48 percent, said prices will drop, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Eight expected an increase and seven forecast little change. It was the most bearish response since the week ended Sept. 22. Last week, 46 percent of respondents said prices would rise.

Above-normal temperatures will cover the eastern U.S. from Jan. 10 through Jan. 14, the National Weather Service said yesterday. The Northeast accounts for 80 percent of the nation's heating-oil use. U.S. inventories of gasoline and distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, surged last week, an Energy Department report showed yesterday.

``The weather is a huge factor weighing on this market,'' said Ric Navy, a broker at BNP Paribas SA in New York. ``We've already gone through a lot of the winter. The supply situation has changed.''
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WHOOPEEEEE! I guess.

[rambler_american]

1. Oil prices

It would seem, based on recent history, that the price of oil is influenced far more by impending elections than by weather or other factors.

[sandnsea]

2. Maybe it's that oil profit tax

the Dems are talking about passing. Just a thought.

[magellan]

3. This is an El Niño winter

Wait till next winter. Global warming minus El Niño means a return to normal patterns plus oomph.

Personally, I'm not looking forward to this summer. The last El Niño occurred over winter 2003, and '04 was a vicious hurricane season.

[ngant17]

4. we have had a warm winter in Florida

so far. This translates to an exceptionally hot summer in Florida. Whatever heating costs you save in winter, they will go down the drain with AC costs in summer.

[maine_raptor]

5. Here in Maine

Since the heating season started (Oct 1) we have used just a shade under 120 gals of oil at our house. Normally that would be our usage just for the month of Dec alone.

Not only has the price of heating oil dropped, but the price of a cord of seasoned firewood has also. Last year it was hovering around $200 a cord (8' length). Checking local prices, I'm finding rates around $150 a cord and that's for delivered, split, and stove length hardwood.

If this keeps up, there's going to be a lot of folks that can afford a few luxuries, like food, this winter up in this neck of the woods.

[Mabus]

6. To be offset later this year with record energy consumption for AC

And the air conditioners will be used for longer periods of the year as the temperatures climb.

[pitohui]

7. every cloud its silver lining EOM

.

[IDemo]

8. Enjoy the weather and low prices. Things may get chilly by this time next year

From Resource Insights:

Natural gas production in North America has leveled off. Only warm winter weather has so far delivered the continent from a severe crisis. The glib confidence with which Wall Street analysts touted the buildup in gas storage earlier this year betrays their ignorance about how tenuous those supplies really are. Underground gas storage currently stands at 2.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and could reach well over 3 tcf if the current hot weather abates and reduces demand for gas used to produce electricity. But those figures amount to a very small buffer when compared to the approximately 26.5 tcf consumed each year across North America. In fact, it is so small that the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is taking steps to encourage an expansion of gas storage in order to reduce the volatility in prices.

<snip> -- But there is something else even more foreboding about the leveling off of gas production according to Douglas Reynolds, a resource economist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who has studied the North American gas situation closely. Reynolds predicts that North American production will begin to fall precipitously sometime after 2007. And, unlike the gradual downslope that the declining production numbers for a depleting oil well or an entire oil-producing nation trace on a graph, Reynolds expects the falloff in North American gas production to resemble a cliff. When gas wells begin to decline, they decline swiftly and often with little warning.

[Omphaloskepsis]

9. Do you really think Global Warming could make this much of a change in one year?

I didn't have to wear gloves when I went to buy beer at the store tonight. I did last night... OMFG Global Warming.. I believe it is real. But saying a few warm months is a result is just as stupid as when the right says a cold day in Florida is proof Global Warming is bullshit.