Subscribe to RSSOil Near US$100
The price of Brent crude oil (the oil sold in London) has touched its highest level in 27 months, as a result of production shutdowns and increasing global energy demand.
Brent reached US$98.80, its highest level since April 2009,
It’s blamed on cold weather in parts of the US, a drop in existing stockpiles, and the recent closure of a major pipeline pumping oil from Alaska.
World oil demand | IEA
An oil analyst told BBC News Brent will hit US$100 a barrel.
Oil first traded above US$100 three years ago this month, and peaked at US$147 a barrel in summer 2008, before the financial crisis swept across the world. Global oil demand this year is expected to hit a record 88.6 million barrels per day.
The International Energy Agency said last week that the rising oil price now represented a major threat to the global economic recovery.
“Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy. The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil producers.”
Market crude prices |IEA
UK Telegraph on why price is rising
The Financial Times on a growing consensus that OPEC is comfortable with the high price and on the grap with the two benchmarks
Business Insider on whether it could trigger another recession
Bloomberg reports on how heating oil futures have surged to a 27- month high
5 Comments
I oil and therefore petrol prices continue to climb we can expect a huge patronage gain this year on PT but with what we have seen so far AT may never actually release the stats.
Joyce I guess doesn’t want ‘positive’ PT stories such as record growth on PT to be seen in faily newspapers. He prefers articles about congestion which can help justify all his road widening projects.
rtc - what does joyce have to do with AT?
While I agree with the need to make AT as public as possible about their doings, let’s not (yet) move into conspiracy mode, eh? I am quite sure patronage stats will eventually be released - but AT is still in a multi-month process of setting up and settling in, and there’s the Christmas period. I am sure they have thousands of things people ask them for - they responded to three service requests I made in Nov and Dec only yesterday, and then only in a “We got them, sorry about the delay, looking into it” kind of way.
So while there is no reason to not call loudly for them to release data like this to the public, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, they are still a pretty raw entitiy.
What ingolfson said. At this point in their existence, simply figuring out which offices everyone’s going to be sitting in will still be an issue for AT. I saw some of the state of chaos that existed across the old councils leading up to 1 November, and it’ll probably take a year before they get all of the crap ironed out.
Brown’s made it abundantly clear that AT has no choice but to operate transparently, but it’ll take some time before that filters down to people who’ve been used to working in dark corners, out of the public eye. It’ll also take time, and possibly a public threat of dismissal, for the Board to fully embrace the culture that Brown wants to see. It’s happening, but with so much to do some things (such as PT stats) just won’t be a priority for a while.