Statement From Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran responds to nuclear package

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5273248.stm

Iran has delivered its formal response to the demand by world powers that it suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for a package of incentives.

The details were not immediately released, but Iran made clear on Monday that it would reject global pressure.

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei said Tehran would continue its nuclear activities.

The UN Security Council members have received the Iranian response, and I suppose, will mull it over for a bit before revealing Iran's response to the media.

Nothing a couple of well-timed well-placed cruise missiles wouldn't cure, in both Tehran and Damascus. No long-term involvement, no ground troops and better still, a chance for the moderates in those Countries to go it alone without foreign intervention.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1916791.cms

A mushroom isnt a fruit.

As a futures trader and watching the Oil contract, one of the basic principles in any market is the trend. Each time the price gets to a key support area in the upward trend of oil Iran has started the ranting about it's nuclear program and in one case the support area was met by the invasion of Lebanon by Isreal who was provoked by proxies for Iran.

Iran is again at it with their nuclear program although this time oil broke through support. It is bouncing higher but will have to go significantly through the $74 a barrel level to not continue lower.

I wonder just how much of what Iran is doing is tied to keeping the price of oil as high as possible rather than anything to do with Allah or hating Isreal. Although I suppose you can do both at once.

For those of you who may not know Iran is the second largest producer of Oil at about 4 million barrels a day. Their primary customer is China.

The Americans have let the price rise because comsumption of Oil in the US has been on the rise for the last 5 years. Since the last Oil embargo in 1979 US daily consumption held steady at 20 million barrels a day and is now about 25 million a day.
It is in the interest of the American economy to let the price rise. The long term fallout from the embargos of the 70's and the subsequent quadrupuling of the price of Oil was that Amercan consumption held steady for 20 years. By the late 90's the price of Oil hovered more frequently at the $10 end range than at the $30 end of the range

If history repeats itself as it might Iran may have condemed themselves to significantly cheaper Oil over the long haul than would have been the case had peace remained in the ME.

The Saudis found this out the hard way. It's why they are so cooperative today when more oil is needed they pump it.

Just food for thought.

Jeff,

It is at this point that the lefties will say it "Is nothing at all to do with oil" ... as they usually do.

I can just hear the chant:

"Hell no, I can't see ... NIOC"

Let's see...A rogue middle east nation is claiming to be developing weapons of mass destruction,threatening it's neighbors and refusing access to inspectors,all the while the UN dithers about taking any action...Sound at all familiar?
NOW would be an EXCELLENT time for all the self-rightious lefties who have been attacking the west over our actions in regard to Iraq and Afgan to tell us how it should be done.Come on now,you have a clean slate,what is the liberal way to solve a crisis such as this.....We're waiting!
BTW,we already understand that if Iran was occupied by white,heterosexual,conservative christians you would condone the use of nukes.

CO, you missed a qualifier in your occupancy list: white, heterosexual, conservative, christian, males...

Iran's reply:

SUCKERS.

I like the direct and real thinking of the normally diplomatic Captain ED.

**Ahmadinejad may want to try to bring the 12th Imam out on his timetable to speed up the end of the world as we know it. We still have the ability to end Ahmadinejad's world in a hell of a hurry, and that a thousand times over.

The 12th Imam won't even have climbed aboard his winged horse before we can turn Teheran into a glass farm. Why don't we recall that we are not helpless children in the face of Islamic millenial nonsense?

UPDATE: Some commenters make the argument that the British sky plot may have been targeted for today, and so we should take this millenialism seriously.

Perhaps, but it's important to remember that al-Qaeda is a Wahhabist group, and they reject the Shi'a as much as they do the West, if not more so. Ahmadinejad is a Shi'ite, and the 12th Imam is strictly a Shi'a expectation.

Cal2 says.. **A mushroom is not a fruit!**

Bingo! = TG

The Ayatollahs should come to Toronto during Gay Pride week if they want to pursue some sweet fruit.

Jeff,

Oil prices will remain high as world demand remains high. The increasingly energy hungry populations of China and India aren't going away or shrinking. Even if every country in the western world holds energy consumption flat those two nations will still power significant increases in demand for years to come. The influence of American consumption on world prices is much less a factor than in past decades.

High prices exist because the easy oil is gone. That's why we're developing previously uneconomic heavy oil in Canada. The harder the energy is to get or the more unstable the supply, the higher the price to be paid.

C.O.: "Let's see...A rogue middle east nation is claiming to be developing weapons of mass destruction,"

Do you mean Israel? Or Pakistan? Oh wait, they are rogue nations that already have nukes.

Iran is years away from an operating nuclear reactor (something Canada has had since the 1950s), let alone nuclear weapons. They have no ICBMs that can reach North America. Ergo, you are a scaremongering lamer.

"NOW would be an EXCELLENT time for all the self-rightious lefties who have been attacking the west over our actions in regard to Iraq and Afgan to tell us how it should be done"

-First, many if not most opponents of the retarded Bush "doctirne" are right wing, you commie.

-Second, start with implementing a sensible immigration policy.

-Next, implent security policies that are rational and do not infringe on hard-earned freedoms.

-Finally, isolate the hell out of hostile nations unless they play ball, and to hell with the economic consequences. Condemn them, sanction them, embargo them, make funny cartoons about them. War is expensive, stupid, and deprecated; skillful diplomacy and effective PR is smarter, more moral, better, and much cheaper than war.

"BTW,we already understand that if Iran was occupied by white,heterosexual,conservative christians you would condone the use of nukes."

I love Canada, but Iran is waaaaaaay more heterosexual than Canada. Many would argue that the Persians are "white". They are definitely conservative, by any reasonable measure. And IRan does have Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i communities.

So Bob, your answer is to have people emmigrate to Iran?

Where can I get the papers for that?

Security policies that do not infringe on....you moron they're buiding a nuclear bomb!!!

Isolate nations...but how do we increase immigration...we threaten sanctions on North Korea and they say it's an act of war and war is bad and they say they have a nuke and and and and and

Thanks Bob, you've shown me a lot.

Martin B

Oil today has at least a $15 - $20 risk premium built in probably more. Under current consumption in creases for the far east and India there is more than enough oil around to satisfy the need. The dire predictions on Oil running out come out of the media who like a good doom and gloom story.

Do some basic arithmatic on the who is producing what and who can produce and is not ie. Iraq who if up to capacity can produce 6 million barrels a day for years to come.

Ghawar the largest Oil field in Saudi Arabia is 260 billion barrels and has been producing since the 1920's. But the surrounding areas and into the gulf off of Saudi Arabia are thought to possibly contain as much as 1 Trillion barrels of Oil. Pure speculation no doubt nevertheless the Saudis will not let anyone in to confirm or deny.

Economic expansion is not a straight line proposition. Excessive expansion is generally met with contraction or stagnation to absorb the excess capacity. The probable condition of China now and into the future for awhile.

Heavey oil is being developed in Canada for two reasons it is cost effective to do so today and it is an alternative due instability in the ME.

Where the price will end up who knows. It may even get to $110 a barrel, but I suspect that if you slow down consumption in the US those alternatives adopted by the US will be adopted elsewhere in the world.

For some 40 years we have been on the verge of running out of Oil.

Martin if we where running out of Oil don't you think the price would be significantly higher? In inflation adjusted dollars we still have cheaper Oil today than we did in 1979.

"So Bob, your answer is to have people emmigrate to Iran?"

Yes, NTB. That is my master plan. My master plan for world peace involves mass mmigration of non-Muslims to a fundamentalist Islamic republic. You understood my point perfectly, thanks for your brilliant analysis.

OK Bob ..have nice trip!

Perhaps the Ayatollah only wants nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes, and when they later acquire the missles to deliver them, it will also be for peaceful purposes. Iran only needs to feel secure in an area where so many of it's neighbours have them.

With a statesman like President Ahmadinejad in office, the world can be assured they would never be the first to launch a nuclear strike. The same cannot be said for the zionist warmongers nearby.

The man reminds me of a young Winston Churchill, only less class concious.

Jeff - there is a bigger picture in the risk premium for oil then the ME. Oil is now a political weapon everywhere. Just look at Putin and Chavez re-nationalizing oil/NG, using them as both a carrot and a stick as a means to control their own political agendas. This will have more serious consequences on supply and demand in the future. Only by a thread did the nationalist/socialist lose in Mexico this election, thank God, or there would be more mischief afoot with playing oil as a politcal weapon.

Ghawar is seriously declining. The Saudis have as much as admitted that they can't increase production. So much for their extra reserves. Mexico's oil production is declining in the GOM. The North Sea field is in decline. Alaska is in decline. US production peaked in the 70's. There hasn't been a big major oil find in 20 years. You can speculate all you want about undiscovered oilfields, but, what really counts are proven reserves in the ground. Check every one of these areas on Google, then, come back and make your claim again that there is more than enough global oil supply.

The oil sands in western Canada are being awarded a premium because they are a proven reserve in a safe and friendly democratic country next to the US.

In inflation adjusted dollars we still have cheaper Oil today than we did in 1979.

So far. Or, with the increasingly higher prices, the market is correcting that disparity.

Usually I ignore Bob in the way that way you don't make eye contact with rabid dogs, but....

And IRan does have Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i communities.

....repressed, under surveillance and ready to be rounded up at a moments notice.

but Iran is waaaaaaay more heterosexual than Canada

I think it's because, Bob, they stone or hang homosexuals as they find them.

The Ayatolloahs do practice buggery and condone it....or so I've been told.

Every one of you losers supports open immigration.

I don't.

So it's not surprising that you are very, very angry that I expose you as the hardline open immigration supporters that you are.

I'll bet you support race and gender hiring quotas too, don't you? And you'll do anything to defect attention away from western society's real enemy - YOU - and blame Muslims, won't you?

The poinnt: shut the F*CK up about "Islam-O-fascism" - what a retarded word - and deal with Canada's most pressing problems.

Scratch a Bush supporter and you'll find a feminist homosexual who is afraid the gravy train of political correctness is about to end and will do anything - including advocating genocide and World War III - to

Every one of you is a closet statist. Losers, on the wrong side of history.

Beastly, low-IQ losers.

To say that any Oil field is increasing is rather stupid. The fact remains that proven and probable reserves in the world to can sustain present growth for another at least 120 years.

That is just adding up the Oil contained in the the Super Giant fields. Of which there are currently 45.

As for risk premium it takes into account all the political risk plus the risk from weather plus any other risk you may wish to name that comes from a source not directly related to Oil. There are in fact 8 risk catagories.

For your information I did the research. It's part of what I do.

As for correcting the disparity if your claim was correct the price would be moving far faster than it is now. What you think those commercials and pro traders down on the floor are stupid.

Yes part of the Oil sands recent fame is due to proximity to the US and the friendly relationship they have with Canada, and I said as much but the fact remains if Oil where under $30 a barrel the Oil sands would be relagated back to what they are an expensive alternative.

Frankly Penny histerical raving like yours is really counter productive to any discussion and the fact of the matter is you didn't conter any thing I had to say with facts just hysterical rumor.

The point of my first post was to point out an interesting correlation between the 4 times in the last year or 2 that Oil has come down and tested the support level of Oil. Each time Iran has ratched up the ME instability at that time.

Price support levels to anyone involved in any kind of Commodity or stock for that matter knows that if breached can for tell a major change in the trend.

If as Penny claims that we are in immiediate danger of shortage would world stock markets continue to hold or at or near their price highs. Since so much of what we produce has a Oil component to it.

My second post was to point out some interesting possibilities that are little known and show a possible reason as to why the price hasn't gone parabolic.

Folks tend not to have that kind of information at their fingertips so I have provided some interesting possibilities.

When and if prices are screaming higher than the 1979 price then I will question weather we are running short until then I will defer to smarter and far better funded and informed sources than myself or rumor to speculate on Oil.

Considering the billions in research that is spent every year by commercials to come up with how much we got and how much we can get at. The price would be blowing the top off the old high if massive shortages where around the corner.

Baghdad Bob: Kindly participate in honest and insightful dialogue / debate or shut the #&*% up. Life is too short to have to wade through your vomit to get to some rational discourse (heck, you even make me yearn for the insight and intelligence of BCL and SteveD).

Oh almost forgot the Saudis can't pump any more because they don't have the infastructure. If you pump a well to fast it burns out too quickly leaving as much as 70% still in the ground. It's the Oil fields own built up pressure that pushes the Oil out.

Not to mention pipelines, container tanks to hold the Oil etc. They are know using their existing infastructure to capacity.

Their is no Oil shortage but there is a refinning shortage. That in part with demand, political unrest, the Hurricane season in the US south are all factors, but not a shortage of Oil.

RANT OFF.........maybe.

Wow, Bob nailed it again: you guys really are a bunch of feminist pansies using this fake IslamOfascist scaremongering to distract from THE FEMINIZATION (and homosexualization, I might add) OF AMERICA AND CANADA. I'm impressed with Bob's analytical skills, and note that Bob is head and shoulders above anyone on the planet Earth when it comes to immigration policy. You guys are lucky he comments here...

BOB IS TEH ROXXOR U R TEH SUXXOR LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

Who's hysterically raving? I presented the facts - no new major oil field find in 20 years since the now declining North Sea field, reserve decline in established fields are on record, declining known reserves by major oil companies - facts so widely distributed that unless you can re-butt them, as I requested, then, shut up. Do you think Exxon, ConocoPhillips and BP are lying in their SEC quarterly reports. You haven't noticed that they are buying reserves via M&A's, by their own admission, rather than finding new reserves? When has OPEC ever been transparent? Why would they be? If they have so much reserve power why haven't they pumped more to get the prices down? They've always done it in the past. They understand demand destruction with high prices. Not good for them. It just may be that they can't anymore because their reserves are declining.

Even using your guess of 10 to 20% risk premium priced into a barrel of oil, then, at today's close of approx $73, that's still oil priced at $60 a barrel without the premium. Apparently, the market isn't buying all of that yet to be tapped oil supply you've mentioned as viable.

That is just adding up the Oil contained in the the Super Giant fields. Of which there are currently 45

Where are you talking about? Got a link on that one? And at what rate of future global consumption is that longevity calculated at?

I'm far from hysterical. I'm not even speculating. I'm simply being pragmatic with the facts at hand.

Jeff.

Ghawar has only produced since 1950, it peaked at 5.5 million bbls /day, now cuts 55%water, the north end is watered out. the Saudis dont have to many secrets Ive seen a log section of it myself. its 19% porosity and you can stand on a chair and hold the paysection from top to the floor.

recoverable oil is estimated at about 100billion, OOIP being 260 billion. still substantial but with 55billion already gone its only 8 months of total world demand.

Jeff,

The easy oil is gone. Irrespective of whether the oil companies can find the reserves for another 120 years of growth, it will get more expensive to produce in more politically risky parts of the world.

Also, I can't see any near term hiccups in the current economic expansions in China and India. We can predict doom and gloom of impending economic recessions relieving pressure on supply but those predictions have all the accuracy of world energy reserve assumptions. Ever study any models involving the sudden economic emergence of 2.3 billion people?

Agreed that Iraq has substantial untapped production capabilities...but a few Iranian mushroom clouds may push that way into the future. Penny's right: security of supply is a paramount consideration and one that nation's will pay a premium price to have and secure supplies ARE becoming harder to find. It's an easy bet that world hunger for secure supplies will keep on growing. It's not as easy of a bet that secure supplies will be able to keep up.

Penny, this: "Usually I ignore Bob in the way that way you don't make eye contact with rabid dogs, but...."

...is out of line, and you know it. Hysterical raving, one might say. It's people like you who ruin the blogsphere, not factually accurate rational argument making problem-solvers like me.

I realize you are a hardline feminist and are very, very angry with heterosexual men in general and me in particular, but this is a forum for intellectual discussion. Admit it: you contribute nothing and you are rude and unintelligent.

Please note that I, and I alone, have posted a rational response to the question of how to obtain peace in the Middle East. And until you retards (and it is critical to note that you are, in fact, acting like retards) step up to the plate - like I have - you need to eat a sandwich and shut the hell up.

Dear SDA Contributers: I'm very sorry that little Bobby-kins has been bothering you nice folks. He's gone off his medications again and is hallucinating...he's currently having a love-fest with two of his other personalities.

But it's not his fault!! The pressure of his job is getting to him...twenty years flipping burgers at McDonalds with no promotion. So, please forgive him and just ignore him if he gets loose from his restraints again and slobbers on the keyboard.

Signed, Bobby's Mommy

Bob.
us over here like to be called mentally challenged. your words are out of line as well.

and the Iranians arent the kind of people to put the fun in fundamental. more like the duh and the mental. having people move there wouldnt appeal to the Iranians or to anyone going there.

cal, do you have a solution for Middle East peace, like I do? No? Do you ignore tons of beastliness here every day and provide factially accurate information and logical arguments like I do? No? Then zip it, and step to it. You don't get to criticize me until you step up to the plate.

Oh, and cal, your support of open immigration and feminism is duly noted. Zap! You're defined, and therefore negated!

Man, Bob is just creaming feminists like cal and Penny! His rare intellect is only exceeded by his Herculian physique....

Whoever is posting as Bob and his many admirers can stop as of now, or they will find their ip address banned.

A woman is frustrated with her love life because her husband has a massive crush on Brigitte Bardot. To win back his attentions, she goes to a tattooist to have the letters 'BB' tattooed on her boobs.
The tattooist warns her that age and gravity would probably make this unattractive later in life, and suggests the tattoo on her butt instead. She agrees, and bends over to receive a 'B' on each buttock.
When her husband gets home from work that night, she greets him by turning around, bending over, and lifting her dress to expose the artwork.
"What do you think?" the wife says.
"Uh, who the hell is Bob?" the husband replies.

me a feminist , thats rich.

most that know me , and there are a few on this blog, consider me just right of Adolf himself.

most of my postings do contain very accurate facts. Im usually , albeit shouldn't be,stunned by the pseudofacts posted here and do my best to challenge them and correct them.

my solution for the middle east.

eenie, meenie , minnie , moe .
who will be the next to glow?

Of coarse there haven't been any new fields discouvered. Oil companies have been buying existing production It's cheaper and far less risky. With so much Oil around why risk billions punching holes in the ground when you can go buy a sure thing somewhere else. Oil has only been on the move for the last three years and only in the last couple has it become worth while to do exploration rather than run the risk of exploration.

We have had $20 Oil on average for the since 1980.

When I said risk premium I said that was 15-20 dollars. That puts it at a minimum 50- 55 a barrel I suspect more but I am being conservative in the estimation. I did not say percent. It is much the same for refineries at 10 to 25 billion for a refinery no one has built one in 25 years. I guess using your reasoning no demand for Oil is forth coming because no one has built a refinery in 25 years.

As for Ghawar I used it as an example I doubt any one has seen anything current on the Saudis fields they haven't let anyone from the West into their fields since the 1970's. I don't know what logs you where looking at. Even so the 100 billion barrel left is not a unreasonable number.

I just find it interesting that some folks from the Oil business speculate that the surrounding area of Ghawar could contain up to 1 trillion barrels of Oil. I used to have the information on my computer and at my fingertips but my harddrive blew up so I gotta go get all this stuff again.

Martin China now has a excess capacity situation. They have grown to fast. If you figure its just a hiccup well so be it. Personally since I tend to have to put my money where my mouth is and since I earn a pretty good living doing it I will go with what I see.

saw the log in Houston. EXXON EPRco. exxon production research. 19 to 20 % porosity all the way down. pay section on logs must have been 14 ft, which is to scale must have been 600meters.no water and a GR kicked left so far it was almost off the page. odd kick about 2/3 of the way down showing either a tight streak or radioactive. I saw it 25 years ago , could almost draw it again now it imprinted on my brain.there was an Aramco engineer there, he didnt understand the idea of artifical lift , at the time they had a well that flowed - flowed!!! a 100000bbls a day by itself.7 inch tubing ,and a dual sweep T.

Dear Kate this bob character is dragging down the whole site. His assinine blathering are the sort of thing that makes most of us very ill. Please do us all a favor and NUKE HIM!!!

Jeff, numbers can be thrown out with reckless abandon until we're blue in the fingertips. I'm not as optimistic as you on the supply side. In my little world I see increasing challenge...you see eager oil seeps waiting to flow forth to waiting tankers. Only the oil price knows...if it tanks for the long term then I'll be happy to admit to bad judgement. It's not hard to admit as I make mistakes everyday. C'est la vie.

However, I've been listening to analysts for the last six months forecast an oil price crash that hasn't yet materialized. Everytime the oil price dips below $70 experts are extrapolating $35 near term oil again and again. Maybe it's just me but I've developed a healthy skepticism.

As for China...I've been there. It's an economic powerhouse which is just getting off the ground. There's little doubt in my mind that energy demand there will continue to rise.

But I could be wrong and have a cloudy crystal ball. Then again, so could you.

Eye contact. Rabid dogs.

I guess using your reasoning no demand for Oil is forth coming because no one has built a refinery in 25 years.

That's as illogical as hell. Refineries are expensive to build and butt up against the not-in-my-backyard environmentalists and their stonewalling, the same with off shore drilling. All the more reason that oil is in shorter supply.

What part of no new big oil finds and declining production of known established fields are you not getting? I'll repeat, proven reserves in politically safe places is all that counts for NA, Japan and Europe. It's all that counts for the crude oil futures market too.

Put a few million more increasingly middle class Chinese and Indians in a family car and see what that does to supply and demand going forward.

Oh and one more thing, the sweet light crude that is cheap and easy to refine is all but gone from the world market.

you can get a costlest collar on oil between about 70$ and 100$ for a one year strip. that tells you that the experts- the ones that actually put their money where their mouth is, not the CBCpravda interviews or Linder- are looking for oil between 70 and a 100 for the year plus or minus 5 bucks on the extremes.