Remember just last week when all the talk of $5.00 gas was everywhere you turned? Hold onto your wallets, folks... it may be here sooner than you think.
Just last week before Hurricane Rita made landfall in the Gulf Region, the stock market had all but made up it's collective mind that Rita wasn't going to be severe enough to pose any lasting damage to flow and output, and speculatory prices had begun to fall off their weekly highs.
Jeff Matthews says - "The best energy industry research firm I know is Petrie Parkman, run by oil research veteran Tom Petrie—a man I interviewed with 25 years ago when I was first looking for work on Wall Street, although he wouldn’t remember me from the Sith Lord.
And from their morning research notes comes the following comment regarding Rowan Companies, a large operator of jack-up drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico:
Rowan has its own planes and were thus one of the first on the scene to witness the impact. They say that the rig devastation is quite significant and the pilots reported that in an area where they previously would see about 15 jack-ups there were none visible.
"None visible."
Now this is where it gets fun.... Pay attention class (and not to the MSM, mmmmkay???)
Of course, while Rowan was flying planes over the area where there were no rigs “visible,” the stock market had already decided the impact of Hurricane Rita was not too severe, based largely, I gather, on the fact that Fox and CNN TV reporters in rain gear were able to walk around parking lots in Galveston shortly after the storm passed and could see no visible damage to the infrastructure miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.
By the end of yesterday, however, the oil markets had corrected the market’s misinterpretation of the Talking Heads’ somber yet relieved reports, and bid oil prices back up—while natural gas never even bothered to head-fake anybody, and just stayed strong.
Meanwhile, Rowan sees a more significant impact on their business besides the loss of a few of their own rigs, thanks to the apparent disappearance of so many other rigs in that region: drilling rates in the Gulf should “sky rocket,” according to the Petrie Parkman note.
Lock those wallets up. 'W' says to conserve energy. AF-1 costs $6900 per hour to fly. At that rate, I believe the CinC can go fuck himself alot for OUR money.
http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com/2005/09/rig-devastation-is-quite-significant.html
Semper Fidelis
Comments
Thanks BD - That fits right in with my today. Saying we are fucked sounds way too trite. Tie this in with credit card companies saying they are going raise rates this Fall, and the new bankruptcy bill and I see massive numbers of families living on the streets. The first to be affected of course will be those living on the edge already, mostly people of color, and so will be ignored for a little while. But when it starts happening to white, middle class families, hooboy, hold on to your hats.
Yo, BD
Nice job. And good insight. Who'da thunk to inpect the oil rigs in the Gulf for damage with respect to rising oil prices.
Not the fecking Bushies. That would let a little reality into the pic.
Later, brother.
i keep having visions of main street, usa looking like ho chi minh city, with the boulevards crowded with bikes and scooters. maybe it wont be so bad. maybe it'll even be a good thing.
such uncertainty is unnerving. is this what the '70s oil embargo malaise felt like?
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