Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

hey mate, give jimbo a call he'll know where theres a good party with free flowing booze and bacon sarnies lol

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Hey Shiva, Still got his number, may give him a call next week as im working most nights in my hotel :(

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

well thats just poo for poor you. when you back?

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Food and sanitation would be there downfall....a massive army isn't easy to maintain healthly....desease was the biggest killer in the napoleanic wars and sanitation issues are still a problem with any large infantry based army.

But anyway, getting back on topic, which is an interesting one...Just curious to know what the re-newable resources situation is like in the ME? Much uptake in solar and wind? What with the deserts, must be quite a lot of potential for it?

And going back to JD's earlier point about Alaska, Bush wants to drill it and will once they get a pipeline going, massive reserves, but it's not popular...but it's one way of reducing the reliance on the ME.

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Believe it or not, Saudi production is almost maxed out...they can only produce another half million barrels a day. But China's demands are so high they are constructing alot of new wells, enough to double output....

One of the corporate initiatives for 05/06 is to raise the profile of crude ........strange but true.

They are also investing billions in gas production.....theres enough gas to keep the world going for 80 years, from Saudi alone..........

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Probably the same from Leeds after all those curries are consumed on a friday night :D

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

TS
Curious... what is the difference between different oils?
Like Brent crude and ME crude and all the others. And they're also different prices per barrel. Why is that?

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

I've heard of 'sweet' oil....and 'sour' oil...sour is the oil from this region which produces loads of smelly sulphur.....I think different oils use differe.....ooh here you go:

Ive copied it for youWest Texas Intermediate
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is of very high quality and is excellent for refining a larger portion of gasoline. Its API gravity is 39.6 degrees (making it a “light� crude oil), and it contains only about 0.24 percent of sulfur (making a “sweet� crude oil). This combination of characteristics, combined with its location, makes it an ideal crude oil to be refined in the United States, the largest gasoline consuming country in the world. Most WTI crude oil gets refined in the Midwest region of the country, with some more refined within the Gulf Coast region. Although the production of WTI crude oil is on the decline, it still is the major benchmark of crude oil in the Americas. WTI is generally priced at about a $2-per-barrel premium to the OPEC Basket price and about $1-per-barrel premium to Brent, although on a daily basis the pricing relationships between these can vary greatly.

Brent
Brent Blend is actually a combination of crude oil from 15 different oil fields in the Brent and Ninian systems located in the North Sea. Its API gravity is 38.3 degrees (making it a “light� crude oil, but not quite as “light� as WTI), while it contains about 0.37 percent of sulfur (making it a “sweet� crude oil, but again slightly less “sweet� than WTI). Brent blend is ideal for making gasoline and middle distillates, both of which are consumed in large quantities in Northwest Europe, where Brent blend crude oil is typically refined. However, if the arbitrage between Brent and other crude oils, including WTI, is favorable for export, Brent has been known to be refined in the United States (typically the East Coast or the Gulf Coast) or the Mediterranean region. Brent blend, like WTI, production is also on the decline, but it remains the major benchmark for other crude oils in Europe or Africa. For example, prices for other crude oils in these two continents are often priced as a differential to Brent, i.e., Brent minus $0.50. Brent blend is generally priced at about a $1-per-barrel premium to the OPEC Basket price or about a $1-per-barrel discount to WTI, although on a daily basis the pricing relationships can vary greatly.

NYMEX Futures
The NYMEX futures price for crude oil, which is reported in almost every major newspaper in the United States, represents (on a per-barrel basis) the market-determined value of a futures contract to either buy or sell 1,000 barrels of WTI or some other light, sweet crude oil at a specified time. Relatively few NYMEX crude oil contracts are actually executed for physical delivery. The NYMEX market, however, provides important price information to buyers and sellers of crude oil in the United States (and around the world), making WTI the benchmark for many different crude oils, especially in the Americas. Typically, the NYMEX futures prices tracks within pennies of the WTI spot price described above, although since the NYMEX futures contract for a given month expires 3 days before WTI spot trading for the same month ceases, there may be a few days in which the difference between the NYMEX futures price and the WTI spot price widens noticeably.

OPEC Basket Price
For a discussion of crude oil pricing in general, and of the OPEC Basket price in particular, see EIA's OPEC Fact Sheet. OPEC collects pricing data on a "basket" of seven crude oils, including: Algeria's Saharan Blend, Indonesia's Minas, Nigeria's Bonny Light, Saudi Arabia's Arab Light, Dubai's Fateh, Venezuela's Tia Juana Light, and Mexico's Isthmus (a non-OPEC crude oil). OPEC uses the price of this basket to monitor world oil market conditions. As mentioned above, because WTI crude oil is a very light, sweet (low sulfur content) crude, it is generally more expensive than the OPEC basket, which is an average of light sweet crude oils such as Algeria's Saharan Blend and heavier sour crude oils (with high sulfur content) such as Dubai's Fateh. Brent is also lighter, sweeter, and more expensive than the OPEC basket, although less so than WTI. Since OPEC has (at least informally) tied its production management activity to the goal of maintaining the OPEC Basket price between $22 and $28 per barrel, market watchers now pay close attention to this oil price indicator.

Imported Refiner Acquisition Cost
The Imported Refiner Acquisition Cost (IRAC) is a volume-weighted average price of all crude oils imported into the United States over a specified period. Because the United States imports more types of crude oil than any other country, it may represent the truest “world oil price� among all published crude oil prices. The IRAC is also usually similar to the OPEC Basket price, so it too is typically about $2 per barrel less than the WTI spot price and about $1 per barrel less than the Brent price. However, because the IRAC is not reported by EIA until nearly 2 months after the end of the month in question, i.e., the August IRAC average price would be reported sometime in late October, the IRAC is not a particularly timely measure of a “world oil price�. Although EIA is generally the only organization that uses the IRAC, it is used by EIA as the “world oil price� in all of its forecast publications, including the Short-Term Energy Outlook, released monthly, as well as the Annual Energy Outlook and International Energy Outlook, both of which are released annually and provide an annual forecast looking out approximately 20 years in the future

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Cheers ;)
All I ever wanted to know about the oli but was too affraid to ask... :beer:

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Then theres baby oil.
But thats another story/thread. ;)

Re: Brief history of Saudi
 

Maybe that's why Holland is planning to (A) replace it's one and only nuclear plant. And (B) Build a 2nd and 3rd nuclear energy plant. Due to all the gas pumping in the north of Holland, there are places that have sunk about 20cm!!!
North Sea oil? With every report that comes out, different estimation figures are given on how much is really down there. So I wonder when the "Turbo" version of an electric car will be available?