Is falling Oil Prices a Mirage??
The war between the human
beings and the scarce energy or natural resources on this earth is a continuous
process and it has been going on since the first ever civilization process. We
have always learnt that the energy resources we have under our surface is an
unrenewable resource; unlike water which is renewable; and that such resources
will end up one day. Many countries have started their campaigns of executing
renewable resources for their purpose but because the installation and
maintenance costs are very high, switching from unrenewable to renewable has
not yet been possible for many. It won’t be a new thing when I say stronger
dominates the strong, strong dominates the weak and the weak dominates the
weaker. Likewise, the powerful nations in the current world have been
dominating the oil-rich nations, using them up and preserving their resources
for the long run. Middle East and the Gulf countries may consider themselves
both lucky and unlucky on these regards: lucky because they are very rich with oil
mines and unlucky because they could not hide it from the economic and
political powers of the world.
With this background, coming
to the current scenario, oil prices are seen coming down the major reason being
a government report in the USA showing the US gasoline inventories the highest
in 11 years. The demand for the motor fuel also came down continuously for the
third week as the refineries have been running at the highest rate since the
month of August. There were talks going on between the President Barack Obama
and the Republican Party to resolve the fiscal cliff in the country but the
result was very disappointing. The disagreement between the two parties to
deter more than $600 billion in the automatic tax increases and the spending
cuts; termed fiscal cliff; also played a significant role in the sudden decline
of the oil prices in the market. On one hand, there is a lot of uncertainty in
the market due to the persistent fiscal cliff in the market and on the other
hand, the inventory report made public by the government is very discouraging
for the investors. The falling turmoil is not only in the case of United States
of America but also in the exchanges in Tokyo and Europe.
The statistical figures show that the supplies of the distillate fuels have climbed to 3.03 million barrels. In the previous years, almost for six years, inventories had dropped but this time the stocks have rather piled up and discouraged the oil prices. There are threatens of the contraction in the US economy by almost a 0.5 percent if correct and sustainable measures are not taken for the economic recovery.
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