RE: More doom and gloom

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of John W Burgeson
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 3:58 PM

> >>"But there is a mystery in the figures. Global oil demand is
> approximately 81 mb/d. With non-Opec crude production at
> 49.92mb/d and Opec's at 29.26 mb/d, plus 3.51 m b/d extra for
> gas and other liquids, total production is 82.8. This
> suggests that stocks should be building by 1.8 mb/d globally,
> which would noramlly be enough to see prices fall.>>
>
> I'd be more inclined to just see the situation as one of
> poorly measured data. 1.8 out of 81 is only about a 2% error.
> Market research of any type is inherently akin to weather
> forecasting -- when I did it at IBM 12 years ago (!) a 20%
> error (of, say, installed LANS) was considered very accurate.

But this missing barrels thing has been around for years and years. It
isn't something new. It is clear that either we are producing less than
we say or are consuming more. And the bias is always in the same
direction. That argues against it being random error.
Received on Thu Aug 12 22:15:50 2004