Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

And all that weaponry is just about to fall into the hands of the jihadist extremists - unless we do something!

If we don't give some kind of support now it is only going to make the future task of holding back these extremists much harder.

Saudi oil minister’s good times will last as lost output lifts prices
by Bloomberg June 13, 2014 2 min read original
By Grant Smith
Bloomberg News

Twelve of the world’s most powerful petroleum ministers gathered around a horseshoe of tables in Vienna this week to pass judgment on the oil market. One of them sounded happier than the rest.

“This is the best time for the market,” Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s minister, told journalists before the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on June 11.

A day later, U.S. and European crude prices, which have exceeded $100 a barrel for a record time, surged to multi-month highs, spurred by worsening conflict in Iraq, the group’s second-biggest producer. Libya, with 48 billion barrels of reserves, is pumping 10 percent of what it can because of unrest.

Saudi Arabia is showing satisfaction with oil prices at a time when OPEC’s collective influence seems diminished. Years ago, its utterances mattered to the market and the global economy. The group whose member countries supply 40 percent of the world’s oil barely moved prices as they met for just three hours and repeated what they said the last four times: Let’s keep pumping 30 million barrels a day.

“The good times are going to last for Saudi Arabia for as long as the outages continue,” said Jamie Webster, an analyst at IHS Energy in Washington. “Even if some of that lost production comes back, the Saudis are still in good shape. They could reduce production by a million barrels a day without panicking.”

Brent crude gained 0.4 percent to $109.95 a barrel on the day of the meeting, at the top of the end of what al-Naimi described as a good range. Prices rose to as high as $114.69 Thursday, the most since September, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London as fighting in Iraq intensified. West Texas Intermediate climbed to the highest in eight months.

Lost potency

OPEC’s output decisions are unlikely to regain some potency until at least next year because disruption in Iraq and Libya mean that Saudi Arabia alone has the capacity to increase production. The kingdom is still sitting on about 2.5 million barrels a day of unused output capacity and committed to adjusting supply as demand dictates.

Demand for OPEC crude is declining as rising production from outside the group, mostly shale oil in North America, more than covers growth in global consumption. The world needed 30.3 million barrels a day from OPEC last year, falling to 29.2 million in 2018, before rising again the following decade, the group’s own estimates show.

Yet Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has raised crude output to an average of 9.7 million barrels a day this year, 4.8 percent above the same period in 2013, according to data the kingdom has supplied to OPEC. It may need to lift production to a record 11 million a day to satisfy demand in the second half, says Energy Aspects Ltd., a London-based consultant.

Sense of balance

Al-Naimi has been able to enjoy steady prices and rising production largely because of the misfortune of other OPEC members.

“Although there’s a sense of balance in the oil market, the convergence of OPEC output to this target has so far been largely due to unplanned outages, rather than a concerted effort by member countries to restrict output at those levels,” Miswin Mahesh, an analyst at Barclays Plc in London, said by e-mail.

Iraq’s production contracted 6.4 percent since reaching a 35-year peak of 3.6 million barrels a day in February amid political disputes and pipeline bombings, according to the International Energy Agency. An al-Qaeda offshoot captured the nation’s second-biggest city, Mosul.

Supply disruptions

In Libya, output has fallen to about a 10th of capacity because of political protests at oil fields and terminals. Iran next month may face an end to relief from international sanctions, which have reduced oil exports, if it can’t reach a broader deal on its nuclear program.

These disruptions mean OPEC won’t face tricky discussions over changing its collective production target, or imposing individual quotas to avoid pumping too much oil, until at least next year, according to analysts from Energy Aspects, Petromatrix GmbH and VTB Capital.

“Things are very happy for those OPEC members who are able to produce more while prices are high and stable,” said Webster at IHS. “The only way things get bad is if a large chunk of production comes back while at the same time U.S. output continues to grow apace, requiring OPEC to reduce output.”

saudi is about 10m and may now be rather more, with both russia and usa in a similar league

while the loss of iraq crude - ignore what its quality may be - is of note, it is nowhere near catastrophic .... and that assumes that the figures exec produced are real

Tesco....

Motley Fool: Buy, Sell or Hold?

There was no bedroom tax under Thatcher. It is a Labour invention. Show me a link to Thatcher doing it!

Hays it was included with the Poll Tax you know the Community Charge.

Check it out. Thatchers Baby that got her the sack.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooooooooo

Theresa May in the brown Stuff again.

90 PRISONERS ESCAPE FROM OPEN PRISON AND ON THE RUN THIS AFTERNOON.

I am just having a messy lunch of chicken fajitas at a restaurant called Chez Bob in Belsize Park, Hampstead. Those food bank customers should come here for lunch. The wine is excellent.

Nothing to do with the poll tax, which is still a brilliant system.

sticky - warped reporting of yours i'm afraid, though it is indeed an indictment of Ford's security .... below is the TRUE story!!

A convict on the run from an open prison is one of nearly 90 currently at large from the same jail.
Police have warned that David Blood, who absconded from Ford Prison in West Sussex on Thursday, may pose "a threat to the public".
The 48-year-old is one of the latest inmates to go on the run from the jail, with Sussex police revealing there are 89 convicts missing from Ford, including a number of murderers, and some who have been missing for years.

YES it is check section 8 sub section 167, paragraphs 4 9 and 12.

In further evidence of a SUMMER OF DISCONTENT we today add Prisoners 90 of them who have escaped from an open prison all on the run(it will be aded at the bottom of the list as will further developments).

SUMMER OF DISCONTENTie,.....

1. Education Row

2.Hundreds of thousands hit by benefits backlog

3. Up to 300,000 passports hit by delays, says David Cameron

4. London's anti-Uber taxi protest brings traffic to standstill

5. Phone-hacking trial: Jury starts deliberations

6. Wages fall well behind Inflation again

7. Interest rates could increase this side of Christmas

8. Armed Force Cheifs unrest at staff cuts

9. Firemen out on strike over their Pay and Conditions.

10. Prisoners 90 of them who have escaped from an open prison all on the run. Home Office blamed for Excesive Cuts

Is it little wonder Camoron is getting tooled up for RIOTS

Prime Minister David Cameron supports water cannon purchase.

shall we have a little expose of your beloved leader?
honestly sticky, that tripe you just posted, really is exactly that ....

Ed Miliband has apologised after Labour figures in Liverpool expressed anger at his decision to pose with a copy of The Sun.

Whats tripe??? hey Ive got a real biggy coming up for my summer of discontent. This will rock the foundations.

Not this but just on SKY........... 9 month high SP on OIL

I an just having a messy lunch of chicken fajitas at Chez Bob in Belsize Park, Hampstead. Those food bank customers should lunch here, much nicer. The white wine was excellent.

Trussel Trust is cutting back on food banks. OECD has said that people are finding it easier to pay for their food.

42441 - didn't you keep posting similar for weeks weeks and weeks weeks ago?

and your point about a spike in the oil price is what exactly?

I wonder what GUY FAWKES is doing this weekend.

Hays, Domestic property Rates and the Rateable Value of a house was based on among other things the number of bedrooms a house had.

This was the forerunner of the community charge (poll tax).

And who introduced it.......yes the Tory Party

Hence you the Tories invented the Bedroom Tax

Comprende??????