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Iran has no plans to cut crude exports: official
Reuters via Khaleej Times
TEHRAN - Iran is exporting oil as usual and has no plans to cut crude exports, a senior oil official told Reuters on Wednesday, a day after the president was quoted as saying Tehran was considering a plan to cut output.

"There is no plan to cut exports and we keep our promises (to clients) ... and we export as usual," said Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
(14 May 2008)

Money motivates Iran to consider oil output cut
Simon Webb, Reuters via Forbes
Money, not politics, is behind Iran's review of oil output levels, say refiners that buy crude from OPEC's second biggest producer.

U.S. crude jumped to a record near $127 a barrel on Tuesday after Iran's President Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying Tehran was studying a plan to cut output.

Some traders leapt to the conclusion Ahmadinejad was pursuing his dispute with the United States, which has taken issue with the country's nuclear programme.

But Iranian oil ministry officials and customers said Iran is only reviewing its output because stocks have swollen.

Refiners are refusing to pay up for heavy Iranian crude that is difficult to convert into transport fuels and Iran is refusing to cut prices further.
(14 May 2008)

Oil's Murky Math
Peter Coy, Business Week via Yahoo!News
At around $125 a barrel, crude oil has more than doubled in price since the end of 2006. How is it possible that the vast majority of government forecasters, stock analysts, economists, traders, and journalists who follow the oil market failed to foresee this? Moreover, how can it be that even today, the bulls and bears on oil are extremely far apart, disagreeing not only on the oil outlook but even the present situation?

The answer is simple. You can't predict what oil prices are going to do even in the short-to-medium term unless you have a good handle on the forces of supply and demand. And that requires thorough and reliable data -- which don't exist. Regrettably, the world oil market is no more transparent than a fragrant barrel of extra-heavy Orinoco crude. And the situation is getting worse because the world's fastest-growing oil consumer is also one of the most opaque: China.

... In other words, there's a big slab of unknown built into the price of oil. Lots of people will confidently predict where prices are headed next, but most of them, including the bulls, have been wrong more than once. Truth is, the world is almost as starved for information as it is thirsty for oil.
(14 May 2008)

High oil prices rekindle oil production in Mo.
Marcus Kabel, Associated Press
Pumpjacks, the oil rigs that resemble those thirsty bird toys, are going up in Missouri for the first time in two decades, the latest region to revive a long-faded industry as crude nears $130 a barrel.

The sky-high price of oil has turned extraction methods recently considered cost-prohibitive into cash cows.

Bright blue pumpjacks stand over a 10-acre site near the Missouri-Kansas border where MegaWest Energy Corp., a Canadian company, is attempting to draw heavy oil - as thick as molasses, and requiring better technology and extra effort to pull from the ground.

The domestic oil revival is taking place in smaller oil fields that require new technology, said Fred Lawrence, vice president of economics and international affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
(14 May 2008)