Garbage like this, is why we need to drill our own oil..

OPEC calls emergency meeting as oil prices plummet

Opec on Thursday brought forward to next week an emergency meeting to
consider a cut in production after oil prices dropped to less than $70
a barrel for the first time in more than a year on worries about a
global recession.

The move coincided with fresh calls from those countries within the
oil producing cartel that are heavily dependent on oil revenues for
their budgets ? most notably Iran, the organisation?s perennial hawk ?
to cut output. Ecuador and Qatar also supported slashing production.

Even Saudi Arabia, the cartel?s most powerful member, which initially
opposed the 500,000 barrel a day cut announced last month and is close
to the US, appears to be in agreement that the group needs to reduce
its production.

The kingdom, which boosted its output by far more than any other Opec
member when prices were high and supply was struggling to keep up with
demand, has already cut some shipments, according to ship tracking
data.

Opec had said that it would need to pump about 31.3m barrels a day in
the first quarter of next year to balance the market, well below its
current output of 32.2m b/d, suggesting that the cartel sees a need to
cut output by almost 1m b/d.

Ben Dell, of Sanford C. Bernstein a New York research firm, said Opec
would need to make an additional cut of 1m barrels a day in order to
avoid a glut in the market in 2009.

?Such a large cut in production is only likely to come from Saudi
Arabia as the other Opec members are levered to higher oil prices in
order to maintain their spending programmes,? said Mr Dell in a
report.

Lawrence Eagles, head of commodities research at JP Morgan in New
York, said that Opec, in moving forward the meeting, had sent a
message that it did not want to see prices slip below $70 a barrel and
was more comfortable with prices around $80 a barrel.

?Bringing forward the meeting to Friday 24th October sends a clear
signal that Opec is concerned about the speed with which oil prices
are slipping away,? Mr Eagles, a former senior official at the
International Energy Agency, said.

The meeting will be the biggest test in more than a decade of Opec?s
resolve and power to form a cohesive unit to stop tumbling oil prices.

The group will have to act decisively in its round of cuts because
otherwise it runs the risk of pushing down prices even further as
traders write it off as toothless.

Opec?s decision to meet next Friday came after investors sold
commodities en masse amid worries that the credit crunch had mutated
into a global toxic economic crisis that would damp demand for raw
materials.

In its monthly report, the cartel said that even if governments were
successful in unfreezing credit markets in the near future, ?the
fallout on the real economy from the financial market headwinds is
expected to be ­considerable?.

Oil prices in New York on Wednesday fell to a 14-month low of $68.57 a
barrel after the US department of energy reported a large drop in the
country?s oil consumption. It said total US oil demand averaged in the
past four weeks at 18.6m barrels a day, 8.9 per cent below the same
period a year ago.

In late afternoon trading, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the US
benchmark, was $3.37 down to $71.30 a barrel, while Brent, the
European reference, was $4.21 down to $66.59 a barrel.

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HAHAHAHAHH the sky is falling the sky is falling.. our prices are
coming down.. also exposes them for the liars that they are when they
said they "had no control over the high prices" during the summer
price run-up.. they have no control.. but they can run it up to 80 a
barrell..


*** 'em.. Gas usagge is almost to the level that we can manage our
own supply by pumping what we have here.. when we can do that I want
to see it.. love to see their turbans fill up with ***.. when it runs
out of their ears..

Then they'd return to making war on everyone.. stupid sandapes..
.