Bp, Shell, Statoil, Platts In Oil Price Fixing Probe.

[liminalien]

It's like LIBOR, but with oil. Very big scandal, if proven.

WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578483012667760962.html

European Union antitrust authorities carried out inspections at oil companies in three countries and a price-index publisher Tuesday, part of an investigation into whether oil firms distorted published prices.

"Commission officials carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of several companies active in and providing services to the crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels sectors," the European Commission said in a statement. "The commission has concerns that the companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products."

[sombreroloco]

The evil fascist EU at it again, interfering with our sovereign right to screw customers and rig competition! Vote UKIP!

[Executive Sadman]

Meanwhile, they want to fix prices for solar panels (probably amongst other things)

I guess fixing prices is fine, so long as its the EU getting the pay off.

[Executive Sadman]

The evil fascist EU at it again, interfering with our sovereign right to screw customers and rig competition! Vote UKIP!

I dont think UKIP would ever deny that the EU does occasionally some good things (whether this is one of them remains to be seen) but rather it should be up to us to adopt those things.

Same goes for the UN, NATO etc. I agree with some of what they do, but it should be our decision and our decision alone to sign up for them on a case by case basis.

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

Anyone with any common sense could see that the price of oil is rigged.

There is no shortage, it's everywhere. They pretend its hard to get and running out to keep the price high.

[sombreroloco]

Max Keiser's guests have been saying for ages that oil prices are manipulated (just like any other commodity price, btw). But then if it's on RT it must be Russian propaganda.

[deflation]

Max Keiser's guests have been saying for ages that oil prices are manipulated (just like any other commodity price, btw). But then if it's on RT it must be Russian propaganda.

On Tuesday, he had Mark Campanale and Luke Sussams of CarbonTracker.org on, about unburnable carbon, wasted capital and stranded assets. They mentioned the unwinding of loans to companies looking for more oil. Crystal Ball?

[R K]

London.

Crime capital of the world.

[JustAnotherProle]

London.

Crime capital of the world.

This is so true, the crime and fraud is rampant here, yet the confidence trick that London/UK is a fair society and a safe haven for other peoples money still persists...amazing!

[cashinmattress]

In a rigged market, you either play along with the scam or you go bust.

How is it a surprise to anybody that all the energy majors are in cahoots?

It starts with Imperial Oil and ends when humanity does.

Edited May 15, 2013 by cashinmattress

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

Oil prices are manipulated through the futures market. This does not, however, make the oil companies more money. Middle men and spivs take all the money.

I've said it before and I'll say t again and again until people grasp it.

While oil companies make billions in profits, their MARGINS are so low that if they were any other business the whole board would be sacked.

Few other businesses in the world run successfully on such low margins.

Their profits come purely as a result of VOLUME, and most of the money they make has to be spent on further exploration.

Edited May 15, 2013 by RufflesTheGuineaPig

[R K]

This is so true, the crime and fraud is rampant here, yet the confidence trick that London/UK is a fair society and a safe haven for other peoples money still persists...amazing!

The global crime syndicates are prepared to have a % skimmed off the top to have their wealth laundered through London.

City of London, House of Lords, Bank.

Nexus of evil.

God Save the Queen!

[Errol]

London.

Crime capital of the world.

Apparently Private Eye has a special report about this in the next issue (not out yet). Pick up a copy if you can.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Errol

[cashinmattress]

I've said it before and I'll say t again and again until people grasp it.

The energy market is entirely different to all others, always has been.

Same goes for food and water.

Your metric does not apply.

[RichB]

Yet if Fuel at the pump price were going to ONLY keep even with CPI - how much per year would the cost price of the petrol need to have fallen?

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

The energy market is entirely different to all others, always has been.

Same goes for food and water.

Your metric does not apply.

You are mixing up the trading of the resources on the commodity market with the production.

Oil companies are producers, not traders.

It's a common misconception that the oil companies profit from higher prices... while they profit from overall trends, almost all of the short term price changes are due to speculation. The surges in the price of oil haven't got directly directly back to producers, all that profit was absorbed by spivs and traders.

What you are about to see is a sideshow where the public are encouraged to blame the oil companies. Investigations will happen and eventually it will be mostly brushed under the carpet - a few oil companies will receive silly little fines they can offset against tax for some minor infraction of the law, the government will say those responsible have been held to account, and nothing will change.

As I keep saying... the oil companies margins are tiny for a company that actually does something useful - finding oil, drilling holes, pumping it, processing it and delivering it to consumers. Few other successful companies survive on such narrow margins.

[RichB]

The main people getting rich off petrol is our exchequer... 56p a litre cost, 60p duty 20% on top of it all in VAT.

Theft. They are taking 150% tax on it. How can they even start to point the finger at OPEC or Big Oil as being the problem?

[cashinmattress]

As I keep saying... the oil companies margins are tiny for a company that actually does something useful - finding oil, drilling holes, pumping it, processing it and delivering it to consumers. Few other successful companies survive on such narrow margins.

Their margins are not as thin as you think.

Upstream... example, a typical North Sea operator is pulling out a barrel at say $15, selling at $100 or whatever the contract price is now.

Even with 62% tax, licensing, labour, insurance costs etc... it is a HUGE margin in comparison to any other industry, especially when you're pulling out 20,000+ barrels and 1000's of CUM's of gas a day, and sometimes that is on just one well!

Rigs up there are making million pounds profit per day, and there are hundreds of them.

Downstream is different and more apt to the economics you put forth.

[shindigger]

Not even remotely surprised.

Wake me up when they get to gold rigging would you.

Now, back to my Osborne induced indifference....

zzzzz

zzzzz

zzzzz

zzzzz

Or maybe this is the EU saying, "you need us to be the scam busters", "yeah you NEEED us".

[liminalien]

Not even remotely surprised.

Wake me up when they get to gold rigging would you.

Here you go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018z54f

[alexw]

Hmm i think the effect from this is greater than it first appears. Much of the natural gas that is sold is pegged to oil in terms of price. So by manipulating the price of oil upwards they have done the same to the gas we use to heat and cook with. Moreover much of our electricity is generated from natural gas.....I think you see where I'm going with this.....so they've also manipulated the price of electricity upwards.

The overall effect being that BP et al, have manipulated all our core energy costs upwards. I'm waiting for the MSM to cotton onto this.

[shindigger]

Hmm i think the effect from this is greater than it first appears. Much of the natural gas that is sold is pegged to oil in terms of price. So by manipulating the price of oil upwards they have done the same to the gas we use to heat and cook with. Moreover much of our electricity is generated from natural gas.....I think you see where I'm going with this.....so they've also manipulated the price of electricity upwards.

The overall effect being that BP et al, have manipulated all our core energy costs upwards. I'm waiting for the MSM to cotton onto this.

Yes and mistakes were made and lessons need to be learned....yadda yadda yadda...

Tip. NOTHING will happen.

[Rare Bear]

Hmm i think the effect from this is greater than it first appears. Much of the natural gas that is sold is pegged to oil in terms of price. So by manipulating the price of oil upwards they have done the same to the gas we use to heat and cook with. Moreover much of our electricity is generated from natural gas.....I think you see where I'm going with this.....so they've also manipulated the price of electricity upwards.

The overall effect being that BP et al, have manipulated all our core energy costs upwards. I'm waiting for the MSM to cotton onto this.

Yes, the peg of natural gas to oil price is the big scam.

[tio]

SULTANS OF SWAP: BP Collapse Potentially More Devastating than Lehman!

By: Gordon_T_Long

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article20778.html

What is yet unknowable is what the reality is of BP’s off-balance sheet obligations and leverage positions. How many Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) is it operating? Remember, during the Enron debacle Andrew Fastow, the Enron CFO, asserted in testimony nearly 10 years ago that GE had 2500 such entities already in existence. BP has even more physical assets than Enron and GE. Furthermore, no one knows the true size of BP’s OTC derivative contracts such as Interest Rate Swaps and Currency Swaps. Only the major international banks have visibility to what the collateral obligations associated with these instruments are, their credit trigger events and who the counter parties are. They are obviously not talking, but as I will explain, they are aggressively repositioning trillions of dollars in global currency, swap, derivative, options, debt and equity portfolios.

Random Internet Search Result .. but ROTFL ..

http://damienclarkson.wordpress.com/tag/bp/

Therefore I was incredibly alarmed to learn about BP’s extensive work in schools in the UK. In particularly one project whereby BP have been going into schools and conducting interactive sessions teaching children to be oil traders. I watched the promotional video which has now been removed by BP, where one BP employees was telling students: ” The trick is to buy oil low and sell it high”. And although their main schools roadshow which has already visited 700 schools has finished they are still operating their similar ‘Enterprise Trading Challenge

The gubbermint is the biggest thief of course, it needs the moolah, now and in perpetuity, to animate the zombie banks from their self inflicted deaths playing with .. off-balance sheet vehicles, leverage & derivates. *shocker*. Whereas the EU is wholey trustworthy, democratic, transparent institution with no tendencies to despotism at all. *smells roses*.

[gadget]

You are mixing up the trading of the resources on the commodity market with the production.

Oil companies are producers, not traders.

Load of crock.

The producers are the biggest traders out there. BP Trading is massive and the head of it earns a lot more than the CEO.

Any market where most trading is done over Yahoo IM is clearly dodgy as hell...