[bwilson4web]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/6478389.html

. . .
So … just in time for summer driving season, gasoline prices are inching toward $3 per gallon. And to think, you probably believed all those hopeful news stories about $2 gas for vacation driving. Dream on!


This bit of deja vu is as foreseeable as it is unwelcome for most American motorists. In Houston, crude prices climbing over $70 per barrel in recent days ought to be cause for optimism in our city’s powerful energy sector, but the picture isn’t that simple. What the number crunchers and others in the oil patch who decide when to increase drilling — and when to stack the rigs and wait — really seek is some assurance that prices will remain within a reasonable price range for a predictable time period. A steady $70 per barrel is preferable to an unpredictable roller-coaster ride between $35 per barrel and $140 per barrel.
. . .
EIA has revised its earlier numbers for global crude production looking far ahead to 2030, Klare observes. The EIA prognosticators have backed off earlier predictions that global crude production in 2030 would be 107 million barrels per day. They now say it’s likely to be only about 93 million, with the slack taken up by nonconventional sources. The headline here, Klare argues, is that the EIA is finally joining with those who have predicted for years that we have passed the curve of peak oil production and that cheap, plentiful crude is history.


One other thing, according to Klare: EIA has significantly speeded up the timetable for when China would displace the U.S. as the world’s largest consumer of oil. That will happen as early as 2014. This all confirms what we already knew: The country is right to be on a track to encourage greater vehicle efficiency while increasing the use of alternative fuel sources. At the same time, however, it is only common sense to also encourage exploration and drilling for new conventional supplies.

Time to buy hybrid vehicle stocks.

Bob Wilson

[FastMover]

It always amazes me that most Americans express so much shock when gas prices climb -- again. The pattern is well established and the driving factors (no pun intended) are well-known. Yet the majority of folks in this country react like Ostriches and ignore the obvious, or like starlings driven away from an airport periodically by a blank shotgun shell. They forget and are surpised and shocked -- even outraged, when it happens again!

We have, indeed, become the nation of instant gratification -- with little or no regard for the long term impacts of our actions. I observe far too many in this country that regard rules and actions intended for long term public benefit as applying to everyone else, but not to them.

RFB

[bwilson4web]

Present company excepted! <grins>

Bob Wilson