A Well Oiled Machine

Look at that header again. Pun intended.

Here’s an activity. Take out the commodities listing for the last month. Note the price of a barrel of petrol .  And now, plot a graph.

What you will get, is a wildly oscillating Sine Wave.  The same kind of graph you get, when you plot the average blogger’s interest in blogging.

It was at 148 $ a barrel two days ago, fell to 136 a pop yesterday.

Why was the difference of 12 dollars created? Simply because a bunch of Brazilian oil workers had threatened to call a strike. Threatened to call a strike, mind you,  not an actual declaration of a strike.

What is going on with oil? Sudden spike of demand? I find that hard to believe. It’s not like consumers have found an alternative to oil. So our dependency on oil Is still intact.

Are there problems on the supply side? Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of petrol, has increased production levels to way beyond theoretical levels.

So, what gives?

The OPEC says that it hasn’t raised its prices at production level. The refiners say that they haven’t raised their costs of refinement. The governments say that they are doing all they can, to reduce prices.

As a responsible global citizen, all I want to say is, enough with the officialese. Let me have an honest answer.

Why is it that when a Russian oil minister sneezes, prices go up( “ Fears about a slowdown in oil production”)why is it, that ( for the Indian context) in the same country, a person in Bombay pays a different rate for petrol, than a person in Bangalore? (I know, petrol duties and all that rot)

Of course, as long as we have eminently sensible people like George W Bush, who have been renowned for taking wise steps to secure oil supplies.

Here is Dubya’s solution to decrease oil prices. Cut down forests and nature reserves, so that American oil companies can drill for oil.

Never mind that it takes around 8-10 years before an oil field can begin mass production. Never mind that all that drilling will not have any benefit for the next 5 years. Never mind that all bush’s plan will achieve, is more deforestation of the American Greens.

Like I said before, Dubya is a sensible guy.