i thunk so

I found a fascinating article today in the New York Times entitled “Big Oil Find Is Reported Deep in Gulf” that initially made me smile. It was a report about a huge oil find deep underneath the Gulf of Mexico.

Chevron, Devon Energy and Statoil ASA, the Norwegian oil giant, reported that they had found 3 billion to 15 billion barrels in several fields 175 miles offshore, 30,000 feet below the gulf’s surface, among formations of rock and salt hundreds of feet thick.

Naturally, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this will eventually just be used as another card in the deck for the oil market manipulators. Once those oil rigs go online, the oil market will be that much more “sensitive” to inclement weather in the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course it’s all puppeteering and scare tactics anyway since the oil companies have a “can’t lose” scenario. By not investing in refining and production infrastructure, they can claim lack of capacity and manipulate prices as such when anything bad happens. They also save that investment capital for themselves, and happily add it to their already record profits. How many businesses in the world can you think of that actually profit from ignoring consumers and from not reinvesting in infrastructure? Only one that I know of.

Filed by JP at 8:47 am under Rants, News Clippings, Opinions, Business