gold and oil predictions for 2015

Just finished my research for today. heres what the "experts" say.

We are all over the place.

Seriously:

The price per barrel is expected to be at $55 by the end of feb, $75 by mid 2015 and some say 90 t0 100 by 2016.

The three main factors are increased production in the U.S. over the past few years. decreased demand world wide. Saudi's huge war chest and willingness to hold out cheep prices in favor of larger production numbers. their cost of production is $4 per barrel.

How will this affect us?

In our daily operation costs it will b a great help.

In shipping cost, my take is not much unless we demand it. mega corporations are fairley quick to excise costs but very reluctant to lower them.

Gold one predicts a price as low as $950, over the next year, but most predict around $1112 by mid year with some still holding at $1225 or so.

Housing starts U.S.:
800,000 single family homes in 2015 is the general conses. Hud, Fannie and Freddy have all relaxed their rules on lending.

(+ we got 5,000,000 new aliens we need to find work for) wounder if the Mexican government would let me trade places with one of them. My $772 WOULD DO PRETTY GOOD IN THE MOUNTAINS OF CENTRAL MEXICO. sry couldn't help it.

Food & retail is expected to raze a standard 4 1/2 % along with housing.

Of course don't look for a retirement raze as those non important things are not counted in the inflation index

Any way that's what they say today.

One thing is certain, we need to demand lower shipping rates from the biggies. just my .02 mcw

Well...oil speculators are full of ****. I've seen Saudi oil fields with my own eyes. If they can pump a barrel for 4 bucks they must have slaves out there doing it and not getting fed. Can they do it for 17...20...sure. So can we. Pumping is not the issue guys, I know I've probably said this a hundred times now but the true costs come from exploration, transportation, refining, storage, end user distributions, taxation and so on.

To pump the oil anywhere in the world (or nearly...lets not count deepwater, frak and so on) to the surface is relatively inexpensive. In most of the gulf region oil reserves have a positive pressure and thus pumping is relatively easy.

Want to know why oil climbed a bit? Some refinery workers and their union rejected a deal with the oil companies five times. They are trying to undermine an industry who, while they make a metric ton of cash they have extremely low margins, often a fraction of a percent. Biting the hand that feeds has caused a blip and rise in prices. There was a time in our history where unions were a good thing and the protections they offered against safety and rights was worth the dues. Today, unions strong arm companies and I have watches as company after company right here in my home state shut it's doors because of unions. Did we forget GM almost went under because of Unions? The idea of the costs was you paid your dues and in the end, the union took care of your pension. Well, bad business happened and now that money doesnt exist so renegotiating is required...over and over.

That sure sounds an awful lot like what has happened to social security doesnt it?

Anyways, to explain it...the union made a counteroffer, the oil company rejected it and has decided to go back to work with out of state and temporary workers. Yet another instance where a union cost thousands their jobs. But this isn't going to be advertised in any news outlet. Union busting is a big nono with the media.

I think gold will hold 1250 or there abouts all year long. I could explain that in two ways, commodities and strength of the dollar.

I agree that corporations should lower end user costs, but most will do the smart thing. They will update fleets, pour money into fuel saving technologies...buy better trailers and trucks, you will see companies focusing on more accurate shipping, less damage and overall a better experience as they compete with each other for our attention and have the money to do so. I don't really see an issue with this. Companies who aren't into shipping will update buildings, increase relations with their employees, education programs and streamline their processes, new machinery and so on. And why? Because if they don't when it downturns again their overhead will be too high to compete with others.


I'll finish with this:

Oil will probably be settle around 80/barrel by october. I doubt it will go higher, there isn't real perogative to go higher. We aren't using as much fuel and the oil companies are looking at sustainability so they don't want to pour oil down our throats OR stiff us with huge bills to scare us away from the oil. Horizon, think about that word. We know large hybrid electric vehicles will eventually make the mainstream. Diesel electric hybrids are already in planning stages with the RAM brand, Chevy is considering a hybrid diesel cruze and malibu. The big OTR brands are planning to go diesel electric in the next few years. Can you imagine 14mpg in a 80,000lb truck/trailer? That sort of thing scares the oil companies. Oh and one more thing, the big one. Oil in my opinion will not peak 100 a barrel without some sort of major inflation to the dollar for the next couple years because it's chemically cheaper to produce petrol and oil from natural gas if the price is too high.

Take it all with a grain of salt. I've heard so much garbage surrounding oil speculations and these talking heads have no idea how the industry works, they look at trends and compare it to other trends and come up with a formula...but that just doesn't work. The real trend is a formula for exploration, results, production versus number of active wells, well pressures, refinery efficiencies, operations, transportation costs, trade agreements between companies, countries and taxes. Futures for consumer consumptions including looking at the increase in efficiency, average use per person, city growths, pipeline costs and upkeep....anyways, theres 50 or 60 factors there and they can't even get a super computer to figure out the trends. Go figure.

I also wanted to add one more thing. The monkey in the room. China didn't order any oil from Saudi Arabia in January. Why is nobody talking about that? Reports are that the port refineries in China are NOT running. So you have to ask yourself...are we just rebounding or could this go further down?

Oh one more thing. Another real estate bubble is coming only this time it's commercial real estate. Have a look around...hundreds and hundreds of buildings totally empty, derelict lots, the same lot for sale for ten years...out of control property taxes. And if you think that won't crush this faux bull run we've been on. I got something for you. It's called reality.

Just passin along what the "experts" (note the sarcastic perinthasis) say. I was clear about that. On the Saudi oil fields remember most of them are old fields and the cost was paid for years ago. The strike or walk out may or may not have much effect right now. it is a refinery and does have an effect on fuel prices not so sure on crude prices. I think the fact that the low price effect on turned off wells and lay offs + exploration and new drilling have been greatly reduced will.

As you may know workers in Saudi are paid more by where they come from then what they do. The western contingent is small compared to other 3rd world countries. The protection and rights of western workers are worlds away from the way others treated from my feeble research. You may be talking very near slave situations in some cases. I have never been there so you have me at an advantage. I can only rely on research and we have no idea what to believe these days.

Yea, I can't imagine oil workers are real happy these days, and yea I understood you were passing on information. Time will tell what happens, it's nothing we can control anyways.

Agreed, I was actually tryin to get some riled about shipping prices as they haven't dropped any. love your Avitar by the way.

Thanks, girlfriend draws stuff at random, I'm a gamer so she drew one of my characters (I think).

Olddude, I would bet the best you can hope for is the carriers not raising rates. Unless the price drop holds for quite sometime, those big guys and all the brokers will just put the extra in the bank. I mostly ship within Canada but I can tell you they raise the rates every year or two no matter what happens. Now, depending on how you ship (broker or account with actual carrier) you should see the "fsc" or fuel surcharge on your rate fluctuate a percent or two. If it doesn't, question it.

My advice in this situation would be to shop around, even if you have used the same place forever, the market for freight is rather aggressive right now. Little companies are trying to get big and the big ones have been big too long. Brokers too are in the same position, some have been at it a long time and new ones are sprouting up everywhere. They all take a piece of the pie and the new guys are willing to take more of a hit to get you to become regular customers. The newer ones also generally have a fresher outlook on the industry and will try more and different lanes to get you the best rate.

Edit: I just put in a rate request and it's not something I normally look at but the fsc was down to 12.5%, which is actually about 5% lower than usual.

Prices are low and a train runs off the rails , we have oil worker strikes then a major refinery explosion hmmmmmm, kinda should make ya at least wounder.

But then again, I'm just a crazy old "conspiracy theorist"