Oil and Natural Gas

Keep it up.
Go OPEC Go OPEC

USOIL current 74.41

OPEC doesn't need to do anything @ this point if they want prices lower to hurt US drillers & any higher-cost producers. As long as the hedge funds continue to push the paper lower, the physical supply/demand doesn't matter. In 2008 oil went from $149 to lower $30s in less than 6 months. Did the supply/demand really change that much that quickly? NO. Hedge funds kept piling on the short side & there was no-one willing to step in front & catch the falling knife. When the risk/reward is no longer in favor of the shorts or they start covering, then & only then will price stabilize & return to some form of a supply/demand market. Ask the hedge funds where the bottom is. They have a better idea than OPEC or any fundamental analyst.

I really don't care who is orchestrating the drop as long as it hits $5x.xx

Oil prices drop below $75 for first time in four years amid supply glut

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2. Tom Huddleston, Jr.

1. @tjhuddle

November 13, 2014, 6:13 PM EST

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Photo by David McNew—Getty Images
The U.S. is on pace for its highest oil production levels in more than 40 years.
Oil prices dropped below $75 Thursday, hitting their lowest levels in four years as higher production creates an excess of supply.
The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped by $2.85 to $74.33, and has fallen more than 30% since June, when prices were above $107. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil dropped $2.46 on Thursday, to $77.92, for a similar 30% drop in the past five months for the global benchmark.
A major driving force behind the declining prices is U.S. oil production, which has increased to nearly 9 million barrels per day and is expected to average 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015. That would be the highest production levels since 1972, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The increase in production comes as a result of the shale boom in states like North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Struggling economies in Asia and Europe have also contributed to global oversupply, while the decision by Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest oil producer — to cut its prices this month applied pressure to other global suppliers. Oil prices are also being driven down by the rising value of the U.S. dollar, which hit a five-year high last week.
The drop in oil costs continues to hurt energy companies on Wall Street, where shares of Chevron CVX -1.02% dropped about 1% on Thursday while Exxon Mobil CVX -1.02% slipped 0.8%. Oil and gas driller Helmerich & Payne HP -6.74% saw its shares drop steeply, almost 7%.
Meanwhile, lower oil prices could be forcing some energy companies to consider consolidation. Reports surfaced on Thursday of a potentially major oil field services deal involving Halliburton HAL 1.05% and Baker Hughes BHI 4.22% . Both companies saw their shares rise on the speculation.
Of course, there is at least one positive effect of plummeting oil prices for American consumers who are seeing some of the lowest gas prices in years. Prices at the pump are averaging around $2.92 per gallon after recently falling below $3 for the first time since 2010.

These last few months in crude have been fucking killer man. Setups so clean. So much money to be made. Praying this volatility continues.

Based Keyser

NGas is on a corrective advance wave b with a good long term trading range heading towards 6.20 area. However, PA is sideways for the next months and could be unpredictable, anything can happen.

i know, right? I trade wti recently and find it hard to think about currencies even I follow them anyways....

what at handle you think this touch before the production reduction? I was thinking of aiming at 72.5 to be on the safe side but it's so hard to control the greed factor on this one.... Can hardly wait to chase this back up!

usoil current 74.91
-this is what I'm looking at

A complex flat correction from Jul 2008 high or/ a flat correction with a complex wave (b) ?

Wti, it's just gotta break the 74.30 thresh hold! Than I think we may have a ride right down to $70...
i wonder how this snow storm is going to play out on prices, anybody figure that it will hold some pressure in the bull?

Penetrated! Now, will it stay in for at least 80+ pips? Or bounce for more pressure?

this is one the charts im following

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...87#post7845087

good reading and reasoning..........
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/1...0J226S20141118

Saudi oil policy uncertainty unleashes the conspiracy theorists
By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Alex Lawler
LONDON Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:13pm GMT

http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources...=LYNXNPEAAH0ZZ
Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi talks to journalists before a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna June 11, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Heinz-Peter Bader
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LONDON (Reuters) - If Saudi Oil Minister Ali al Naimi wants to stop conspiracy theories spreading before a crucial OPEC meeting next week, it's too late.
Naimi's intervention last week after a two-month silence failed to address a question energy markets want answered: is the OPEC leader no longer willing to defend oil prices which have dived by a third to their lowest since 2010, and is it pursuing new commercial or even geopolitical goals?
Despite Naimi's insistence that Riyadh wants stable markets, diplomatic and market sources say Saudi officials told recent private briefings that the kingdom can live for some time with current, or even lower, levels.
Reading Saudi oil policies has long been like Kremlinology - understanding the politics of that other secretive power, Russia. The next OPEC meeting on Nov. 27 is taking this art to a new, higher level.
A number of explanations have been offered to fill the information vacuum on Riyadh's intentions and they aren't all from the usual conspiracy theorists in Russia and Iran, which are at loggerheads with the kingdom.
Oil market watchers are divided on the outcome of the meeting in Vienna. Predictions range from a large OPEC production cut to revive prices through a small cut to none at all.
Even those who have known Naimi for decades are puzzled. "For the first time, I really do not know what is likely to happen at the meeting. It is not clear," said a long-serving senior OPEC delegate.
When Naimi finally spoke on Nov. 12, he said Riyadh's desire for stable markets had not changed. "Saudi oil policy... have been subject a great deal of wild and inaccurate conjecture in recent weeks. We do not seek to politicise oil ... For us it's a question of supply and demand, it's purely business," he said.
According to four market and diplomatic sources, who asked not to be named, Saudi officials briefed OPEC watchers privately in New York and Riyadh in September and October.
Nasser al-Dossary, Saudi Arabia's national representative to OPEC, Naimi's deputy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and the kingdom's OPEC governor Mohammed Al-Madhi attended at least one of these meeting to give the message that, with its large currency reserves, the kingdom was prepared to withstand oil prices as low as $70-$80 per barrel for up to a year.
Benchmark Brent crude oil slipped to $79 on Tuesday.
Most members of the cartel apart from Saudi Arabia need much higher prices to balance their budgets but ironically are unable or unwilling to reduce their output to counter a global glut caused by slowing economic growth in China and Europe, just as U.S. oil production booms.

SEEING OFF SHALE OIL
Should the Saudis tell fellow OPEC members, badly suffering from the oil price collapse, that they will not cut output, debate will intensify on what prompted the policy shift.
One possibility is Riyadh wants to see off U.S. shale oil, which is believed to need much higher prices than conventional production to remain competitive. "They are after U.S. shale," said one participant in the meetings with Saudi officials.
However, the source added that the Saudis might also regard low prices as an opportunity to put even more pressure on Iran and Russia for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an arch-enemy of Riyadh, in the country's civil war.
Several Saudi oil sources have denied over the past month that geopolitics are now driving the policy, but they have failed to stifle theories that Riyadh and Washington are working together to hold down prices.
"What is the reason for the United States and some U.S. allies wanting to drive down the price of oil? To harm Russia," Nicolas Maduro, president of fellow OPEC member Venezuela, said last month.
Masoud Mirkazemi, an Iranian lawmaker and former oil minister, said Riyadh was helping the G20 group of major economies. "Saudi Arabia, which intends to manage OPEC, serves the interests of the G20 group," he said.

"GLOBAL OIL WAR"?
In Russia, the idea of a Saudi-U.S. plot against Moscow has become common currency as the economy struggles under the effects of low oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Leonid Fedun, a co-owner of private oil firm Lukoil, cited President Barack Obama's visit to Riyadh in March. "Obama travelled to meet the king of Saudi Arabia just after the Crimea events to push him to these actions (to lower the oil price)," Fedun, whose firm has large U.S. assets, said last month.
Russia and Iran routinely allege U.S. plots against their economies, but the conspiracy theories are spreading.
"Is it just my imagination or is there a global oil war underway pitting the United States and Saudi Arabia on one side against Russia and Iran on the other?" New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, wrote last month.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sidestepped the issue after a trip to Saudi Arabia in September. Asked if past discussions with Riyadh had touched on Russia's need for oil above $100 to balance its budget, he smiled and said: "They (Saudis) are very, very well aware of their ability to have an impact on global oil prices."

Good article, I read this one too yesterday.... It seems the next major break down is at the 74- 74.2 level, than another easy shoot down for 60 or so pips so it would seem.... Bum by ride to the bottom... Next weeks news with be well anticipated! Anybody else's thoughts?

*bumpy

I hope this snow storm or profit taking by the big players doesn't throw this back up over 75.30 again!

Technically, I'm watching out for the completion of this final wave [v] near bottom channel line at 67.00 area before reversal.

Cheap-Oil Era Tilts Geopolitical Power to U.S.
By Rich Miller Nov 19, 2014 7:45 PM ET

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/itG7YWbqWfjU.jpg
Photographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg
A floor hand signals to the driller to pull the pipe from the mouse hole on Orion Drilling Co.'s Perseus drilling rig near Encinal in Webb County, Texas. U.S. crude production reached the highest in more than three decades, driven by shale fields in North Dakota and Texas. Close
A floor hand signals to the driller to pull the pipe from the mouse hole on Orion... Read More
Close
OpenPhotographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg
A floor hand signals to the driller to pull the pipe from the mouse hole on Orion Drilling Co.'s Perseus drilling rig near Encinal in Webb County, Texas. U.S. crude production reached the highest in more than three decades, driven by shale fields in North Dakota and Texas.
Related

1. Oil Prices Plunge: How Likely Is Action From OPEC?
2. Iran, OPEC, Saudi Arabia, and the State of Mideast Oil

A new age of abundant and cheap energy supplies is redrawing the world’s geopolitical landscape, weakening and potentially threatening the legitimacy of some governments while enhancing the power of others.
Some changes already are evident. Surging U.S. oil production enabled America and its allies to impose tough sanctions on Iran without having to worry much about the loss of imports from the Middle Eastern nation. Russia, meanwhile, faces what President Vladimir Putin called a possibly “catastrophic” slump in prices for its oil as its economy is battered by U.S. and European sanctions over its role in Ukraine.
“A new era of lower prices is being ushered in” by the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution, Ed Morse, global head of commodities research for Citigroup Inc. in New York, said in an e-mail. “Undoubtedly some of the geopolitical changes will be momentous.”
They certainly were a quarter of a century ago. Plunging oil prices in the latter half of the 1980s helped pave the way for the breakup of the Soviet Union by robbing it of revenue it needed to survive. The depressed market also may have influenced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade fellow producer Kuwait in 1990, triggering the first Gulf War.
Russia again looks likely to suffer from the fallout in oil markets, along with Iran and Venezuela, while the U.S. and China come out ahead.
‘Geopolitically Important’
Oil is “the most geopolitically important commodity,” said Reva Bhalla, vice president of global analysis at Stratfor, an advisory company in Austin, Texas. “It drives economies around the world” and is located in some “usually very volatile places.”
Benchmark oil prices in New York have dropped more than 30 percent during the last five months to around $75 a barrel as U.S. crude production reached the highest in more than three decades, driven by shale fields in North Dakota and Texas. Output was 9.06 million barrels a day in the first week of November, the most since at least January 1983, when the weekly data series from the Energy Information Administration began.
“For 10 years, the defining factor in the oil market was the growth of China and Chinese oil demand,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of Englewood, Colorado-based consultant IHS Inc. and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the commodity. “Now the defining factor is the astonishing growth of U.S. oil production.”
Price War
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have begun what energy economist Philip Verleger calls a “price war of necessity” in response, aimed at protecting their market share and forcing producers in the U.S. and elsewhere to reduce output.
So far, U.S. companies aren’t flinching, believing they have more staying power than many of Saudi Arabia’s 11 partners in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
“Saudi Arabia is really taking a big gamble here,” said Archie Dunham, chairman of shale producer Chesapeake Energy Corp. in Oklahoma City. “If they take the price down to $60 or $70 a barrel, you will see a slowdown in the U.S. But you’re not going to see it stop.”
Leonardo Maugeri, a former executive at Italian oil company Eni SpA who is now at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said the market has entered a “gray zone.” A terrorist attack on oil fields in the volatile Middle East could send prices back up. So too could a cutback by OPEC -- which meets on Nov. 27 in Vienna -- or a revival of global demand, though Maugeri says neither is likely.
Probable Case
The most probable case is a four- or five-year cycle with prices in a general range of $65 to $80 a barrel, he said. That compares with an average of about $88 from 2008 to 2013 and a high of more than $140 at one point during that period.
The big question is whether oil-producing nations will react with accommodation or confrontation, said James Burkhard, vice president and head of oil-market research for IHS.
“That’s where the water gets a little muddy,” he said. “That story will be unfolding in the months and year ahead. It does add greater uncertainty and volatility that can often lead to negative surprises.”
Russia is the biggest loser, according to a Bloomberg Global Poll of international investors last week. Revenue related to the sale of oil and natural gas accounts for about half the country’s budget.
The combination of U.S. and European sanctions and declining oil prices means a period of extended economic stagnation for Putin comparable to the later years of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s 1964-1982 rule, said Neil Shearing, the chief emerging-markets economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London.
Falling Ruble
Russia’s economy will contract by 1.7 percent next year after stalling out in 2014, IHS forecasts. It projects inflation will rise to 8.4 percent from 7.6 percent, boosted by a depreciating currency. The ruble has fallen about 30 percent against the U.S. dollar this year.
The economic woes thus far haven’t undercut the Russian leader’s support at home or his determination to stand up to the U.S. and European criticism over Ukraine.
“Thanks to sanctions, the population has rallied behind Putin,” said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information, an independent consulting company in Moscow. “People are ready to put up with hardship in order to resist the West.”
This could change the longer oil prices stay down and the more Russia’s economy weakens.
“It will erode Putin’s support” if it goes on for another six months to a year, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS.
Oil-Export Revenue
Iran has seen its revenue from oil exports fall by some 30 percent, President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks to parliament published Oct. 29 on Shana, the Oil Ministry’s news website. The nation needs to achieve a break-even sales price of $143 a barrel this year to keep its budget in balance, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Like Russia, Iran’s economy has been weakened by economic sanctions -- in its case over its nuclear program. The steps by the U.S. and its allies have almost closed Iran’s oil and gas fields to investment in the last decade, limiting the country’s access to technology to boost output.
The decline in crude prices and a Nov. 24 deadline for a nuclear accord are raising pressure on Rouhani, elected last year on a platform to end Iran’s isolation and revive growth.
Downward Pressure
If he does strike a deal and sanctions are lifted, it could put further downward pressure on oil prices as the country increases its exports. That’s what London hedge-fund manager Pierre Andurand -- who predicted the price plunge last month -- is betting on. He sees Brent crude declining to $65 to $70 a barrel as Iran boosts output after reaching a nuclear agreement, according to a Nov. 11 letter to his investors.
Brent for January settlement ended yesterday at $78.10 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Falling prices also are bad news for Venezuela and its increasingly unpopular president, Nicolas Maduro. The country’s economy already is in deep trouble, with inflation of 63 percent in the 12 months through August.
Venezuela lost 30 percent of its foreign-exchange revenue in the last month because of a “tremendous” drop in oil prices, Maduro said Nov. 13 in a televised national address from Caracas. He said he sent the country’s foreign minister to five oil producers, including Mexico and Russia, to drum up support ahead of the Nov. 27 OPEC meeting.
Petro-State Producers
“Producers in the petro states will have to act to put a bottom on prices if their governments want to survive,” Citigroup’s Morse said.
Social turmoil in Venezuela could “paradoxically” help prop up prices “a bit” if output there was disrupted, said Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
The U.S. is emerging as a big winner, according to the Nov. 11-12 poll of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers.
Increasing energy independence means the U.S. is less vulnerable to supply disruptions overseas, said Robert Hormats, a former undersecretary at the U.S. State Department who is now vice chairman of Kissinger Associates in New York. Independence also provides added leverage in international negotiations, whether with Iran over its nuclear program or with Russia over its intentions in Ukraine.
U.S. Prestige
The boom in U.S. energy output also enhances U.S. prestige, which had been dented by the global financial crisis that originated in America’s housing market, said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“You talk to business people in China, and they are transfixed by the way the U.S. has generated this technological revolution in energy,” Jones said.
China is another big winner, as it imports almost 60 percent of its crude, said Lin Boqiang, director of the energy economics research center at Xiamen University and an independent director of PetroChina Co.
The world’s second-biggest economy probably will take advantage of the savings to build up its strategic reserves rather than dedicating the funds to increased spending on defense or the environment, according to Lin.
The plunge in oil prices also gives the nation leverage in its dealings with Russia. The two countries signed a $400 billion, 30-year gas-supply accord in May during a summit in China, then deepened their energy ties earlier this month by signing a preliminary agreement for a second Russia-China pipeline.
“China will always have an upper hand in dealing with Russia as long as crude prices stay low,” Lin said. “Russia needs the energy income dearly.”

3rd time going down this hill, really hope it cracks 74 soon! Thanks for the article