A Place to Stand

This is a follow up to the last item (literally a follow up since blogs scroll upwards). Again I have seen no mention of the French oil strike & its possible effect on the US. The US has, because of environmentalist controls, not been allowed to build new oil refineries for many years & thus they have been running a near full capacity. This had a major impact following Hurricane Katrina when a small proportion of refineries were temporarily knocked out & there was a shortage of oil & price hikes.

This shows how interlinked the world economy is & how near the edge the US economy is that it can be at risk from a very few striking "cheese eating surrender monkeys".

The world economy is doing so well that we can afford this sort of "environmental" Ludditism, right up to the point when we can't.

A strike by workers at the French Mediterranean oil terminal Fos-Lavera, in its third week, has begun to hit refinery output and raised concerns over Europe’s ability to export fuel to the United States.

Strikers met port and Gaz de France officials on Thursday in a fresh bid to find a way out of the 16-day strike.

Some refineries could start shutting down as soon as Friday if the dispute is not resolved, operators said. Fos Lavera is the world’s third-biggest port for oil products with 64.2 million tonnes moving through it annually.

Technical analysts at Barclays Capital said oil would find it tough to break through $70, for the time being at least. US crude hit a record $78.40 last July.

“All signs warn that oil will struggle to make headway above $70 first time around and at the very least a period of consolidation is needed,” they wrote in a report.

Again I want to say how poor our media is limiting themselves to what our leaders want to publicise or to the relentlessly trivial. Doubtless, if the US really does run into a shortage it will be a massive news story & journalists will be expressing surprise that nobody (else) saw it coming.