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GreatGazoo

(4,402 posts)
8. Around 2000 -2001 I worked on the GUI for an online oil trading platform
Tue Dec 9, 2025, 03:44 PM
Dec 9

I'm a database and graphics guy but I had to learn enough about oil to understand the reports we were generating.

The price of oil is determined by supply and demand with less interference than most commodities. There are too many players for the US to be able to rig the price of oil. Eg if Russia sells oil to India all the US can do is tell India to stop buying it. Same for China, etc. The low price of gasoline in the USA is not oil companies helping Kras -- it is weak demand due to the generally poor condition of the world economy.

The regime change in Venezuela will be timed to match the end of the Ukraine war. Both of these events are cued up now. Likely the US will say that a drug boat fired on US military or something similar, eg like the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The double taps seem to be designed to foster this kind of event.

Not all oil is the same. As the price goes higher, more wells go back into production. Oil is currently at $58-ish which means Tar Sands in Canada is not pumping. Why? Because Tar Sands oil needs lots of refining so it is only profitable to pump it when oil is above $80 or so. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is profitable even when prices are very low because it takes less refining and transportation. Brent Crude (from the UK) is somewhere in the middle. But the floor for WTI is usually $60. Once the price goes under $60 the MIC will take steps to get it up. I met a NYMEX trader who urged me to buy oil every time it dips under $58 because it is guaranteed that it will go back above $60/62 as soon as our $3 trillion military can get it there.

What all of this means is that oil is already too low for US oil companies at $58. They cannot tolerate a further decrease in prices which the end of Russian oil sanction would bring so Venezuelan supply will be taken off line when Russia supply comes back. Bombing, blockades, etc.

Oil companies aren't helping Krasnov -- Krasnov is helping oil companies.

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