Big Copper.
Big Aluminum.
Big Tungsten.
All of their prices have increased as fast if not more so than oil.
23 Replies to “Big Wheat”
“But the biggest waste, the most futile mission you could possibly go on is trying to convince a brainwashed dolt that subscribes to the farce that BIG OIL is somehow controlling prices.”
Do they not teach kids these days what a cartel is? OPEC is the very textbook definition of a club designed to restrict output in order to increase prices.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international cartel[1][2] made up of Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
…
OPEC nations still account for two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves, and, in 2005, 41.7% of the world’s oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opec
Given past ravings from Captain C., I’d like him to say WHY wheat is going up, other than “commodities” are going up so why not wheat too. Perhaps you could explain it Kate?
It seems that when most leftists say that something needs to be done about “Big Oil”, they are not referring to OPEC members. They’re referring to Exxon, Amoco, Shell, Encana, and the like. These companies do just as any other producer of commodities does – they sell into an unregulated world market. The best example of the Captains’ brainwashed dolt is the type (see “Taliban Jack Layton”) that pounds his fist about global warming and the next minute rails about high gas prices.
“they sell into an unregulated world market. ”
I guess that answers my question. Least factual claim in the history of the internet.
Saskboy and Andrew, the answer to the commodities price rise is that more people want the stuff and have the money to -buy- it. Like three billion more in Chicomland and India.
After Indira Gandhi got snuffed by her own bodyguards, India miraculously started climbing out of poverty and famine. Today India is kicking ass in world markets, buying all manner of metals and food to build out their infrastructure. These days its mostly corruption that holds them back, whereas under the Gandhis it was corruption AND communism of a particularly idiotic type.
China did the same thing, at roughly the same time. Now their economy is growing at double digits despite the astounding corruption in the Chicom gubmint. More of a street gang, really.
Which just goes to show that while corrupt officials can be paid off, there is no escaping the crushing effects of socialism.
For those of you trolls out there yet to weigh in, I’ll simplify the above comment for you, so you can understand it.
Corruption = very bad
Socialism = much, much worse
M’kay?
“Saskboy and Andrew, the answer to the commodities price rise is that more people want the stuff and have the money to -buy- it. Like three billion more in Chicomland and India.”
Agreed, but this does not in any way refute the existence of OPEC as a cartel. Let me put this in terms a human might understand: I claim that I have a ball, and it is red. You claim that my ball cannot be red, because it is round.
A ball can be both round, and red, at the same time. I hope you have found this helpful.
The only exception to this that I can think of is “Big Diamonds” But it wasn’t a secret who controlled diamond prices and it was only possible because there was initially only one major source for them.
Conspiracy theorists have a poor understanding of human nature. The likelihood of keeping a secret secret is inversely proportional to the number of parties in on the “secret”.
How true, when the left blames Big Oil, it isn’t about OPEC but those capitalist pigs making a (gasp!) profit. If the Loony Left blamed OPEC then they would have to condem Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Then where would Hollywood go for phot ops?
The same Economics 101 dropouts want to raise royalties on Alberta’s tarsands. They seem to forget that raising the royalties reduces profits and creates unhappy shareholders. The increased costs will ultimately end up at the pump for Joe & Jane Sixpack to absorb or they could scale back (or move) until the markets are more favorable.
Texas Canuck, don’t think so.
Why is Big Oil scrambling into the tarsands? Coz they can make lotsa bucks…………else why spend billions to dig up sand, wash it, cook it, crack it and pipe it to US refineries?
Isn’t drillin’ a hole a whole lot simpler/cheaper?
Back in the late 90’s Suncor had their production costs down to $10/bbl, producing 100,000 bbl/day at $40/bbl Nice profit………..
The royalty system needs to be adjusted. That’s all.
“Given past ravings from Captain C., I’d like him to say WHY wheat is going up, other than “commodities” are going up so why not wheat too. Perhaps you could explain it Kate?”
The article below is about a year old but provides a good overview of the reasons for higher wheat prices. http://energybulletin.net/17261.html
Basically, demand is outstripping supply. Also, I assume higher energy costs are reflected here too (fertilizer is made from nat gas).
Andrew, the world market for oil is not regulated. OPEC tries to manipulate it, but it is not regulated. The retail natural gas market in Alberta is regulated. The global market for oil is not. In any event, it is certainly not regulated or manipulated by the “Big Oil” companies.
What strikes me is that there seems to be a disconnect between oil prices and the price of a gallon of gasoline at gas stations.
AJ:
With the run-up in wage and other costs the price per BBL of syncrude is more like 45 to 50 – and climbing as the CDN$ goes ever higher. Royalties DO NOT need to be adjusted in the way that is currently being recommended.
What needs to happen is that current extraction technologies – excavation and SAGD need to be recognized as ‘economically proven’ and thus have a more aggressive royalty schedule while those that have not reached that stage – acetate, and THAI etc. would have the current relaxed early-development schedule. Any changes should only apply to new land leases and projects, not current ones as they were entered into under the current schedule – how would you like it if the bank decided to increase the interest rate on your mortgage before the guaranteed term expired?
And actually, drilling a hole isn’t a lot cheaper or simpler. If you are hunting for elephants (500mm bbl reserves and up) you are talking offshore and offshore is hugely expensive, and risky.
For example, the last exploratory well drilled off NL over 3 years ago now (thank you Hugo Williams for driving off any new exploration with your extortionist tactics) and cost at least 200 million and was a DRY hole.
AND Hebron was discovered over 20 years ago and will not come on-line for at least another 5 yrs, so the sunk costs already must be well into the billions in today’s dollars.
Compared to that, developing the tarsands is akin to shooting fish in a barrel in the eyes of a risk analyist.
Including the price inflation of other global commodities in a discussion of high oil prices does not support the theme that George Bush is deliberatley inflating high oil prices to help his friends. Soooo…let’s remember to supress that information in any further discussion, okay?
“Which, frankly, and simply is that they hate capitalism, want your money and need a villain to rationalize the transfer of wealth.”
The “green” crowd pushed biofuels by using catch phrases as; ‘Natures Fuel’, ‘renewable’, ‘off oil’.
Warm n’ fuzzie but they are none of the above.
Ironic that the Gore Suzuki crowd has succeeded in bringing about the opposite of what they “thought”.
High oil profits ( actually it helps all our pension funds)
Pushed up the price of food , especially for the world’s poor.
Higher emmissions (biofuels are worse than fossil)
If the eco-fanatics had not wailed against nuclear (France, that “green” bastion, relies on it) and road blocked oil exploration, all of the above would not have happened.
Once again, Patrick Moore is on the correct side, Suzuki on the wrong.
“If the eco-fanatics had not wailed against nuclear (France, that “green” bastion, relies on it) and road blocked oil exploration, all of the above would not have happened.”
Oh yeah, the typical cornucopian argument that “if it were not for those damned tree huggers the world would be awash in cheap oil”.
In fact, oil exploration is ‘hampered’ by environmentalists in only a few places. Most of the world’s oil producers don’t have that problem.
And another reality is that we no longer find real big oil fields anymore; haven’t found them for years. We go after smaller reservoirs to compensate the declining, older fields; just about every producer out there pumps flat out as fast as they can, and yet production has been flat in the last 2 years. Add to that increasing demand, and that’s why you have higher prices.
And even pushing aside the tree huggers won’t do much. For example Alaska’s ANWR is said to contain 10 billion barrels. The US consumes almost 8 billion every year. Drilling there delays the inevitable but can’t prevent it.
I agree with you that bio-fuels are a crock. You need more energy to produce it than you get from it, particularly from corn. But it’s a great vote-buying scheme, with the addition of looking like you’re doing some good.
The price of refined gasoline in North America is currently hovering between $2.00 and $2.20 US/CDN a US gallon. The difference between that and the $0.96 cents a quart (ok, litre) I payed at the pump today is
A) Special formulations required by various idiot state and provincial governments, ethanol, additives and such like.
B) Transport.
C) A tiny wee little minuscule profit for the poor ba$tard selling it at the pump.
D) Taxes. Lots and lots and lots of taxes.
Andrew. Yes OPEC is a cartel. No, they don’t set the price of crude. No, the price of crude is not $82.whatever because some bunch of suits decided, its because supply from various non-Arab countries is down for a variety of (mostly political) reasons.
The -cost- of crude production is up because the cost of all commodities is up. China, India and Indonesia are buying iron and steel, so steel pipe is expensive.
A 42 gal US bbl (158 litres) of oil refines to 20 US bbls (76 litres) of gasoline.
Do the math (my big number hand held computer with 1 memory has broken down) and you’ll see that increases of 5 to 10 cents/litre on Fridays are the result of totally deranged marketing types.
They have obviously have been kicked out bed in the morning by their wives and to vent their frustrations, they get even with us innocent drivers on the weekends at the gas pump.
And that doesn’t even include the other 82 litres of product they can also sell.
After Trudeau, Lalonde and Maurice Strong set up Petro Canada, gas prices in Canada went ……
To show how crazy consumers are I saw a lady buy a litre of water from Fiji at Loblaws today, price $3.29! Yet she would probably complain about the high cost of gas.
what really pees me off is the price of uranium 🙁
WTF? it’s a cheap, clean fuel..it’s a viable alternative. maybe the only viable alternatrive
Somewhat off topic but t I read recently the EU is trying to outlaw conventional tungsten filament lamps in favour of fluorescent types. Something to do with glow-bull warming or some such nonsense. Personally I favour a 100w halogen! However the EUSSR disagrees with me. I must be in need of re education.
“But the biggest waste, the most futile mission you could possibly go on is trying to convince a brainwashed dolt that subscribes to the farce that BIG OIL is somehow controlling prices.”
Do they not teach kids these days what a cartel is? OPEC is the very textbook definition of a club designed to restrict output in order to increase prices.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international cartel[1][2] made up of Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
…
OPEC nations still account for two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves, and, in 2005, 41.7% of the world’s oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opec
Given past ravings from Captain C., I’d like him to say WHY wheat is going up, other than “commodities” are going up so why not wheat too. Perhaps you could explain it Kate?
It seems that when most leftists say that something needs to be done about “Big Oil”, they are not referring to OPEC members. They’re referring to Exxon, Amoco, Shell, Encana, and the like. These companies do just as any other producer of commodities does – they sell into an unregulated world market. The best example of the Captains’ brainwashed dolt is the type (see “Taliban Jack Layton”) that pounds his fist about global warming and the next minute rails about high gas prices.
“they sell into an unregulated world market. ”
I guess that answers my question. Least factual claim in the history of the internet.
Saskboy and Andrew, the answer to the commodities price rise is that more people want the stuff and have the money to -buy- it. Like three billion more in Chicomland and India.
After Indira Gandhi got snuffed by her own bodyguards, India miraculously started climbing out of poverty and famine. Today India is kicking ass in world markets, buying all manner of metals and food to build out their infrastructure. These days its mostly corruption that holds them back, whereas under the Gandhis it was corruption AND communism of a particularly idiotic type.
China did the same thing, at roughly the same time. Now their economy is growing at double digits despite the astounding corruption in the Chicom gubmint. More of a street gang, really.
Which just goes to show that while corrupt officials can be paid off, there is no escaping the crushing effects of socialism.
For those of you trolls out there yet to weigh in, I’ll simplify the above comment for you, so you can understand it.
Corruption = very bad
Socialism = much, much worse
M’kay?
“Saskboy and Andrew, the answer to the commodities price rise is that more people want the stuff and have the money to -buy- it. Like three billion more in Chicomland and India.”
Agreed, but this does not in any way refute the existence of OPEC as a cartel. Let me put this in terms a human might understand: I claim that I have a ball, and it is red. You claim that my ball cannot be red, because it is round.
A ball can be both round, and red, at the same time. I hope you have found this helpful.
The only exception to this that I can think of is “Big Diamonds” But it wasn’t a secret who controlled diamond prices and it was only possible because there was initially only one major source for them.
Conspiracy theorists have a poor understanding of human nature. The likelihood of keeping a secret secret is inversely proportional to the number of parties in on the “secret”.
How true, when the left blames Big Oil, it isn’t about OPEC but those capitalist pigs making a (gasp!) profit. If the Loony Left blamed OPEC then they would have to condem Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Then where would Hollywood go for phot ops?
The same Economics 101 dropouts want to raise royalties on Alberta’s tarsands. They seem to forget that raising the royalties reduces profits and creates unhappy shareholders. The increased costs will ultimately end up at the pump for Joe & Jane Sixpack to absorb or they could scale back (or move) until the markets are more favorable.
Texas Canuck, don’t think so.
Why is Big Oil scrambling into the tarsands? Coz they can make lotsa bucks…………else why spend billions to dig up sand, wash it, cook it, crack it and pipe it to US refineries?
Isn’t drillin’ a hole a whole lot simpler/cheaper?
Back in the late 90’s Suncor had their production costs down to $10/bbl, producing 100,000 bbl/day at $40/bbl Nice profit………..
The royalty system needs to be adjusted. That’s all.
“Given past ravings from Captain C., I’d like him to say WHY wheat is going up, other than “commodities” are going up so why not wheat too. Perhaps you could explain it Kate?”
The article below is about a year old but provides a good overview of the reasons for higher wheat prices.
http://energybulletin.net/17261.html
Basically, demand is outstripping supply. Also, I assume higher energy costs are reflected here too (fertilizer is made from nat gas).
Andrew, the world market for oil is not regulated. OPEC tries to manipulate it, but it is not regulated. The retail natural gas market in Alberta is regulated. The global market for oil is not. In any event, it is certainly not regulated or manipulated by the “Big Oil” companies.
What strikes me is that there seems to be a disconnect between oil prices and the price of a gallon of gasoline at gas stations.
AJ:
With the run-up in wage and other costs the price per BBL of syncrude is more like 45 to 50 – and climbing as the CDN$ goes ever higher. Royalties DO NOT need to be adjusted in the way that is currently being recommended.
What needs to happen is that current extraction technologies – excavation and SAGD need to be recognized as ‘economically proven’ and thus have a more aggressive royalty schedule while those that have not reached that stage – acetate, and THAI etc. would have the current relaxed early-development schedule. Any changes should only apply to new land leases and projects, not current ones as they were entered into under the current schedule – how would you like it if the bank decided to increase the interest rate on your mortgage before the guaranteed term expired?
And actually, drilling a hole isn’t a lot cheaper or simpler. If you are hunting for elephants (500mm bbl reserves and up) you are talking offshore and offshore is hugely expensive, and risky.
For example, the last exploratory well drilled off NL over 3 years ago now (thank you Hugo Williams for driving off any new exploration with your extortionist tactics) and cost at least 200 million and was a DRY hole.
AND Hebron was discovered over 20 years ago and will not come on-line for at least another 5 yrs, so the sunk costs already must be well into the billions in today’s dollars.
Compared to that, developing the tarsands is akin to shooting fish in a barrel in the eyes of a risk analyist.
Including the price inflation of other global commodities in a discussion of high oil prices does not support the theme that George Bush is deliberatley inflating high oil prices to help his friends. Soooo…let’s remember to supress that information in any further discussion, okay?
“Which, frankly, and simply is that they hate capitalism, want your money and need a villain to rationalize the transfer of wealth.”
The “green” crowd pushed biofuels by using catch phrases as; ‘Natures Fuel’, ‘renewable’, ‘off oil’.
Warm n’ fuzzie but they are none of the above.
Ironic that the Gore Suzuki crowd has succeeded in bringing about the opposite of what they “thought”.
High oil profits ( actually it helps all our pension funds)
Pushed up the price of food , especially for the world’s poor.
Higher emmissions (biofuels are worse than fossil)
If the eco-fanatics had not wailed against nuclear (France, that “green” bastion, relies on it) and road blocked oil exploration, all of the above would not have happened.
Once again, Patrick Moore is on the correct side, Suzuki on the wrong.
“If the eco-fanatics had not wailed against nuclear (France, that “green” bastion, relies on it) and road blocked oil exploration, all of the above would not have happened.”
Oh yeah, the typical cornucopian argument that “if it were not for those damned tree huggers the world would be awash in cheap oil”.
In fact, oil exploration is ‘hampered’ by environmentalists in only a few places. Most of the world’s oil producers don’t have that problem.
And another reality is that we no longer find real big oil fields anymore; haven’t found them for years. We go after smaller reservoirs to compensate the declining, older fields; just about every producer out there pumps flat out as fast as they can, and yet production has been flat in the last 2 years. Add to that increasing demand, and that’s why you have higher prices.
And even pushing aside the tree huggers won’t do much. For example Alaska’s ANWR is said to contain 10 billion barrels. The US consumes almost 8 billion every year. Drilling there delays the inevitable but can’t prevent it.
I agree with you that bio-fuels are a crock. You need more energy to produce it than you get from it, particularly from corn. But it’s a great vote-buying scheme, with the addition of looking like you’re doing some good.
The price of refined gasoline in North America is currently hovering between $2.00 and $2.20 US/CDN a US gallon. The difference between that and the $0.96 cents a quart (ok, litre) I payed at the pump today is
A) Special formulations required by various idiot state and provincial governments, ethanol, additives and such like.
B) Transport.
C) A tiny wee little minuscule profit for the poor ba$tard selling it at the pump.
D) Taxes. Lots and lots and lots of taxes.
Andrew. Yes OPEC is a cartel. No, they don’t set the price of crude. No, the price of crude is not $82.whatever because some bunch of suits decided, its because supply from various non-Arab countries is down for a variety of (mostly political) reasons.
The -cost- of crude production is up because the cost of all commodities is up. China, India and Indonesia are buying iron and steel, so steel pipe is expensive.
A 42 gal US bbl (158 litres) of oil refines to 20 US bbls (76 litres) of gasoline.
Do the math (my big number hand held computer with 1 memory has broken down) and you’ll see that increases of 5 to 10 cents/litre on Fridays are the result of totally deranged marketing types.
They have obviously have been kicked out bed in the morning by their wives and to vent their frustrations, they get even with us innocent drivers on the weekends at the gas pump.
And that doesn’t even include the other 82 litres of product they can also sell.
After Trudeau, Lalonde and Maurice Strong set up Petro Canada, gas prices in Canada went ……
To show how crazy consumers are I saw a lady buy a litre of water from Fiji at Loblaws today, price $3.29! Yet she would probably complain about the high cost of gas.
what really pees me off is the price of uranium 🙁
WTF? it’s a cheap, clean fuel..it’s a viable alternative. maybe the only viable alternatrive
Somewhat off topic but t I read recently the EU is trying to outlaw conventional tungsten filament lamps in favour of fluorescent types. Something to do with glow-bull warming or some such nonsense. Personally I favour a 100w halogen! However the EUSSR disagrees with me. I must be in need of re education.