Big Oil Benefits from Human Sacrifice

WASHINGTON — Crude oil futures jumped above $72 a
barrel yesterday after the fatal shooting of an American oil worker in
Nigeria and a refinery snag in Texas exacerbated supply concerns.

The rally came in spite of US government data released yesterday that showed
an increase in oil and gasoline supplies, highlighting just how nervous
the market remains about everything from geopolitics to the weather.

At about $70 a barrel, oil futures prices have been supported for weeks
by concerns ranging from the West’s diplomatic confrontation with Iran,
a thin supply cushion, and the coming hurricane season, among other factors.

”The market is so jittery right now," said BNP Paribas Commodity
Futures broker Tom Bentz, one of several market participants who said prices
may take yet another run at last month’s record above $75 a barrel.

from the Boston
Globe

No Tom, you have to say the market is so jittery THAT….it
needs to take a chill pill. Or something, but as an English teacher,
it chaps our ass when people say, for example, "I am SO grossed out…."
Please tell us, we plead, that you are so grossed out, as are we, that
you want to throw up.

Pet peeves aside, what strikes us as interesting
is that the assassination of a single American oil worker in Nigeria
could send
oil prices up $1.44 a barrel. Considering that current worldwide consumption
is around 80 million barrels PER DAY, the death of that worker is generating
$115.2 million of additional funds daily into the coffers of the oil
companies and producing states.

At that rate of exchange, and if they could get away
with it, we are sure the oil companies would enthusiastically institute
a weekly, or even a daily human sacrifice, in the style and on the scale
of the Aztec Empire. Hugo Chavez would probably throw in a few IMFers,
and Iranian President Ahmadinejad might offer up some of those die-hard
Shahists it’s had rotting in cellar cells for 18 years now.

It would be obvious that the Gods favored the supplications,because
the financial benefits would be, as they were in this case, immediate
and substantial.

The Saudis, who already have more money than they
know what to do with, and spend most of their time trying not to attract
attention, seem vaguely embarrassed by the whole current price
spike,and would probably decline to participate.

All kidding aside, one has to respect the brilliance
of the energy cartel. We have been maneuvered into a position where
almost
ANYTHING that happens on the world stage pushes the price of oil up.
Political developments, fighting in producing countries, Presidential
threats, mechanical failures, labor disputes, tanker accidents, sabotage
and rumors of sabotage, terrorist attacks completely unrelated to oil
– all of these and more send the prices to new highs, and the numbers
at the pump spin like those on a one-armed bandit.

Bad weather, in any one of a dozen parts of the world,
will send prices spiraling! How likely is it that there will be bad weather
in any one of a dozen parts of the world? Give us a break.

We’ve been snookered, boys and girls, and in the process
we’ve gotten strung out, bad. So bad that going cold turkey would kill
us. All of us, and literally, not figuratively. So it’s not as
simple as waking up and realizing we’ve been snookered.

But that’s the first step.