Oil and Gas Jobs the best oil and gas jobs resources online

Mirred with scandals gold loses its shine as investors contemplate oil as an alternative
By GIUSEPPE MARCONI for OIL-PRICE.NET, 2009/12/10

How many people around the world with money to invest are going to continue to fall for the advice of so called experts calling for them to invest in gold?

Everyday, newspaper and television advertisements are enticing people to invest their capital in gold. They are backing up their advice with claims that investing in gold will safeguard their capital from high inflation. They also go further by telling prospective investors that investing in gold will protect their money and savings from turbulence in the world economy.

Unfortunately, a number of people are falling for this advice and are investing their money in gold without actually calculating the risks, and it must be said that there is now more risk than previously in using gold as an investment strategy. One of the main risks is the mind boggling amount of fake gold bars circulating. As reported by our partner site Gold-Quote.net, number of governments worldwide have been secretly carrying out audits of their gold reserves due to the fact that trading in fake gold has become a major criminal activity. The Chinese government has actually recalled its gold reserves being held by the Bank of England. However, ironically it is also a Chinese company which has been advertising the fact that they manufacture and sell fake gold based on an alloy known as tungsten. Their website, Chinatungsten Online, actually quotes the following, ‘We are well accustomed to exploit more innovative applications of tungsten products. Gold plated tungsten is one of our main products.’

It is no surprise that the Chinese may be at the forefront of criminal activity involving gold, as approximately sixty percent of the world’s supply of tungsten ore is mined in China. Tungsten is a dream product for those who wish to make a profit from scams involving fake gold. While gold’s density is 19.3 g/cm3, tungsten’s density is 19.25 g/cm3, only 0.26% lower and given any practical measurements this difference is impossible to discern.

Counterfeiters manufacture fake $480,000 400oz gold bars as follows: a brick of tungsten is cast, and a thick layer of gold is deposited via electrolysis, sealing all the edges and covering the whole surface. Although these gold bars resemble gold and contain on the surface approximately $50,000 worth of gold, they are not gold, and those that have mistakenly invested in tungsten filled bars or coins, thinking that it is a safe and lucrative investment, have been in for a nasty surprise.

But the Chinese are not the only culprits, in October 2009, it transpired that there were tungsten-filled gold bars in the gold reserve held in Hong Kong… shipped from the USA. In the past number of years, some UK based investment banks have actually pulled out of trading in gold commodities due to their concerns regarding the amount of fake gold circulating.

Criminals that are manufacturing and selling fake gold have been using such sophisticated methods, that even seasoned experts have been fooled. A number of US citizens have actually been calling for an audit of the Federal Reserves. One of the problems with identifying fake tungsten filled gold, is that it can only be detected by drilling the bar.

When there are concerns about fake gold in such world renowned banking institutions as the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserves, there can be little doubt that the criminals, trading this gold, have been helped along the way by insiders working in these institutions. There is so much red tape involved with these banking institutions that it is impossible fake gold would have been able to infiltrate their vaults without help from insiders.

Whereas there is no doubt that real gold is valuable, it is no longer the safe investment that it once was.Rumours which are currently circulating that GLD EFT very likely holds tungsten counterfeit bars among its 1117 metric tons make frightening reading. This is more gold than the central banks of China, Switzerland, Japan and Europe put together. A large number of Investment strategists are now convinced of the fact that investing in oil is a safer and more lucrative investment strategy than investing in gold. Our studies show that this view is certainly correct. No one wants to make counterfeit oil, as there is no money in it.

There is simply no substance known to man that produces as much energy per liter for as cheap as oil. Any attempt to make “counterfeit” oil, to manufacture such potent combustible material is guaranteed to cost more, a losing business proposition. So oil is counterfeit-proof because it is… cheap. On the other side crooks will always attempt to counterfeit gold and may turn a profit because it is… expensive (gold costs close to $1,200/oz today)and there are cheaper materials out there such as tungsten (only $20/lb) and “proven” modern manufacturing technologies that make counterfeited gold impossible to detect.

As a result of the high amount of criminal activity now involved in the gold commodities market, anyone who invests in gold is taking the risk that some of the gold they purchase, whether they physically hold it or not, may include fake gold.

You’re better off owning crude oil.

Technorati Tags: Could, gold!, investment, safer

Posted under Oil Prices

by James Leigh, University of Nicosia Introduction

Saudi Arabia according to popular wisdom is a Persian Gulf Arab state, awash in vast amounts of oil, with high levels of oil production and massive oil reserves yet under the desert sands. However, the truth may be completely different.

Within this context the Saudis are exploring the opportunity to sell their oil on more transparent exchanges in which they feel they have some logical control over production levels and pricing in relation to world demand, and also be paid in currencies outside the anemic US dollar. Such a mover would be a great influence on all of OPEC. This has crucial implications for the US as it could take oil trading from US exchanges and eventually outside the dollar as the currency of trade.

The Real Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has generally had falling oil production since its all-time peak in 1980 of 9.9 million barrels per day (mbpd). Present Saudi production is probably around 9 mbpd. The big question: Is declining Saudi production because the desert kingdom is running out of oil, or a voluntary action to reserve oil for potential higher prices in the future?

Technorati Tags: Arabia, Implications, Opportunities:, Pursues, Saudi, Trade

Posted under Oil and Gas News

The reason for the discussion on tar sands is that Norway’s Statoil is going to invest huge amounts into the tar sands and Swedish pension funds are investors in Statoil. My task was to describe the role of Canada’s tar sands in the global energy system and to discuss the significance of tar sands for global energy supply. Very roughly speaking, one can say that the oil that was formed millions of years ago can be divided into three fractions,

Technorati Tags: between, Europe, future, pensions, relationship, Sands

Posted under Oil and Gas News

Contango is when the investor or producer puts the commodity into storage waiting for the prices to improve-before selling.
By MERLIN FLOWER for OIL-PRICE.NET, 2010/01/13

A cold wave has engulfed much of Europe, the US and Northern Asia. The resultant freezing temperature has led to a thirty percent surge in the demand for heating oil. With it, the heating oil prices reached a thirteen month high last week. And today, the price of oil per barrel is the highest in 15 months. For a start, indeed, the cold wave is an important reason for the high oil prices, but there is another equally important factor as well: Oil Contango.

A contango is when the investor or producer puts the commodity into storage waiting for the prices to improve-before selling. Markets get into contango when the prices don’t reflect the actual value of the commodity. In other words, if the investors feel that they could get better returns, say, after six months, they store the commodity instead of selling it immediately. This is called contango.

For oil, the price of futures is usually calculated using the present day price of oil (spot price) and the expense incurred in storing it. For instance, if oil per barrel costs about $ 70 today, you calculate the expense incurred in storage-about $20 per barrel. Then you add both and sell it at a price of $90 per barrel. So it’s basically simple economics-just store the oil and sell it to make profit. In January 2009, the oil market started to get into a contago. Not least because the prices were very low at about $36 a barrel. In short, traders, oil companies, producers and investors put a large amount of crude- millions of barrels mainly in tankers- and refined products under storage.

This was termed ’super contago’ as the speculators anticipated a huge/unusual profit when/if the markets recovered. Mind you, the investor could suffer heavy losses too as this theory is based mainly on speculation. Still, as the financial crisis was on, it triggered many investors to stock oil. Oil investor forums were awash with predictions of increase in oil prices six months on.

Looking back, the contago seems to have lasted for a better part of last year. Check out some figures for commercial inventories (oil held by refiners, producers, investors and others)In January 2009, the U.S. Commercial inventories was at 325.4 million barrels. This was the highest since May, 2008Come April, the contango was at 10% from June to SeptemberIn October, the US commercial stocks dropped as gasoline and distillate inventories withdrew some of the stocks. But even after the draw the overhang with the five year average was impressive at about 70mb. (OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report, November 2009). The OECD (Organization for Economic co-operation and Development) commercial oil inventories dropped too, but remained above the five year average at 80 mb in the same month.By late October, according to EIA (Energy Information Administration) , oil inventories were more than thirty percent higher than the previous year. The distillate stockpiles had also reached levels never seen in the previous thirty years. According to EIA’s short term energy outlook released in December 2009, OECD commercial oil inventories stood at 2.77 billion barrels at the end of the third quarter. This was about 115 million barrels above the five year average.

Oil pundits predicted that this ’super contago’ could derail as soon as the stocks reached the maximum storage capacity. After all, it’s not possible to keep on piling barrels and barrels of oil. (Indeed this story was picked up by the media with a huge outcry over three floating tankers along the British coastline, waiting with the oil. But the hype died off as the rumors couldn’t sustain the interest). Many feared that once the maximum capacity was reached, the oil prices could crumble as the market would be flooded with oil.

However, the market never reached the predicted situation. What’s more, there emerged room for more storage. In December, Cushing, the world’s largest commercial oil site added about 5.2 million barrels of storage capacity to the existing 42.4 million barrels. The maximum storage due to safety precautions is pegged at 41.2 and 43.8 million barrels from 34 million barrels of operable storage space earlier.

It also didn’t stand when many analysts predicted that the contango could lead to $10 oil a barrel. The contention- eventually, the stored oil would have to be unloaded. The low demand for oil and the strong dollar added strength to the prediction but now, thanks to the cold wave, the unloading of the ’super contago’ has come at the right time.

And, this December the unloading started. According to EIA’s Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report released on December 31 2009, working gas in storage was 3,276 Bcf, a net decline of 124 Bcf from the previous week. But, as pointed earlier, due to the cold wave and the surge in demand the oil prices increased.

As often is the case, knowing the opportunity of a price rise the oil companies did increase production. According to a survey, OPEC increased the crude oil production to 26. 965 mbd in December. This was the highest level attained last year, an increase of up to 65,000 b/d from November.

Yet, the fact remains that the unloading hasn’t happened on a massive scale as expected. Consumption does seem to have recovered in the fourth quarter. But if the cold wave abates, then there is possibility for the oil prices to see a correction, so investors watch out.

Technorati Tags: Contango, Effects, prices

Posted under Oil Prices

by Guy R. McPherson

As I indicated in a previous post, the word “resources” is problematic because it implies materials are placed on this planet for the use of humans. We see finite substances and the living planet as materials to be exploited for our comfort. Examples of intense anthropocentrism are so numerous in the English language it seems unfair to pick on this one word from among many. And, as with most other cases, we don’t even think about these examples, much less question them (cf. sustainability, civilization, economic growth). My only justifications for singling out

Technorati Tags: Anthropocentrism, Resources

Posted under Oil and Gas News