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<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerrydincher/10115754216/">Flickr/Gerry Dincher</a></div></div>The FT's Izabella Kaminska <a href="http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/11/13/1693722/recollecting-the-false-messiah-of-peak-oil/">flagged</a> an important nugget in this morning's Schork Report from oil markets guru <keyword id="233253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stephen-Schork">Stephen Schork</keyword>.
It explains why massive oil discoveries like American <keyword id="188620" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Shale">Shale</keyword> seemingly come from nowhere.
Schork recounts how his group was meeting with a prospective client in Vienna, home of OPEC, in 2008, when U.S. crude contracts had hit $147 a barrel. The fund manager was convinced oil prices were going to stay high forever. Schork was not, and called him a "fool" for believing so. 
They ended up not getting manager's business - but it was probably for the best, since he'd clearly missed a central tenet of how markets work:
"Our expressed skepticism was (and still is) based on common economic sense that high prices are indeed the cure for high prices. The mirror of this economic axiomatic is… low prices are the cure for low prices, which in the case of our Viennese fund manager, led him to the false messiah of peak oil. The reason why no new significant oil deposits were discovered in the 1980s and 1990s is because… at $20 a barrel it did not make any economic sense to go out and try and discover new oil. In hindsight, you drive oil to $147 barrel and lo and behold, five years hence the world is swimming in oil. It really is that simple."
Earlier this week, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iea-energy-outlook-bearish-on-shale-2013-11">we told you</a> that the IEA is saying the world appears to be unprepared to deal with the steep production decline rates of shale wells.
But the takeaway from Schork's anecdote is that, if prices do begin to rise, the industry will likely be able to come up with a way to increase the wells' productivity.
And there's a third lesson: to address climate change, the price of emitting carbon dioxide will have to be raised.
And we shouldn't think - the Obama Administration, after all, did just make new coal plants <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2013-09/documents/20130920proposal.pdf">56% more expensive</a> by imposing new emissions rules on them.

Oil Guru Explains The Cure For High Oil Prices In One Very Simple Paragraph

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">REUTERS/Fred ProuserActor Charlton Heston (L) waits beside his black Corvette sports car, as a gas station attendant services his car April 23 in Hollywood.</div></div><keyword id="154077" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="gas-prices">Gas prices</keyword> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-gas-prices-are-surging-2013-7">have surged</a> about $0.20 since July 4, and currently stand at a national average of $3.67 a gallon.
This has been a headache to the American driver, and economists are worried about what it could do to spending.
Unfortunately, it could be a little while before we see some relief at the pump.
In a new note today, fuel markets guru <keyword id="233253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stephen-Schork">Stephen Schork</keyword> warns not to expect any relief until September.
First off, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/massive-explosion-rocks-quebec-town-after-train-carrying-crude-oil-derails-2013-7">the Quebec crude freight train disaster</a> has complicated <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-gas-prices-are-surging-2013-7">ongoing east coast refinery outages</a>:
<div class="column">
...two Friday’s ago the rumor-mill was churning out the notion that the recent spike in mogas was the result of Irving Oil securing delivery commitments after the catastrophe at Lac-Me´gantic cut off crude shipments to the company’s 299 Mb/d St. John (Canada) refinery. 
To this effect, on Friday Irving reportedly shut down units at this refinery. This news compounded the recent unplanned outages at Phillips 66 Bayway, NJ facility and Philadelphia Energy Solutions South Girard refinery.
Schork also believes the rising cost to refiners of the renewable fuel standard — <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blend-wall-and-gas-prices-2013-7">a topic we also discussed</a> — has filtered into prices:
Add to this the 1,800% spike in RINs and the attendant incentive to export mogas rather than pay the EPA’s vigorish, and all of a sudden, gasoline supplies around the NYMEX NYH terminal complex look challenged. 
Result: more pain —
Of course this is going to translate (should these prices prevail) into higher gasoline prices for consumers. For example, over the previous three summers a $0.01 per gallon increase on the NYMEX has translated one month later to a $0.009 gallon increase in pump prices. NYMEX RBOB for August delivery has rallied by around 46 cents this month. 
Given that AAA gasoline was at $3.474 over the 04th of July holiday, pump prices could be pushing up against $3.900 by the Labor Day holiday. 
Yuck.
</div>

Sorry, But Gas Prices Will Continue Rising Through Labor Day

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/44218706@N00/454792996/">Flickr / alexpgp</a></div><keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">Oil</keyword> prices <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oil-is-getting-slammed-again-2013-4">are way down</a> after the Energy Department's Wednesday supplies report fell short of expectations.
Brent is off -2.3%, while WTI has fallen -2.6%. Oil supplies fell by just -1.2% compared with -2.4% expected per Citi.
Oil markets guru <keyword id="233253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stephen-Schork">Stephen Schork</keyword> says it's another sign the economy is stalling.
"The weakness that we are seeing is a continuation of selling; we've been in a bear market since the first of the month," he told us.
He noted the DOE report also showed a large supply build in Cushing, Oklahoma — a key transmission point for shipping crude stocks — as well as a sharp build in gasoline supplies on the East Coast. Since that hit a low of -12% versus the five year average in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, regional gas supplies are now at a 7.5% surplus compared to the average.
The report was only the third negative draw this year, he said, and oil reserves remain near all-time highs.
"You can't have inflation if you don't have economic growth," he said.

Today's Oil Report Is A Bad Sign For The Economy

Oil markets have so far shrugged off the death of Venezuelan President <keyword id="49517" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="hugo-chavez">Hugo Chavez</keyword>.
Energy analyst <keyword id="233253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stephen-Schork">Stephen Schork</keyword> says we should consider the larger damage Chavez did to his people by depriving them of vast oil revenues.
Production has been in decline for nearly a decade, he writes, ever since Chavez purged Petróleos de <keyword id="2723" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Venezuela">Venezuela</keyword> (PdVSA) of talent and replaced it with "political stooges." 
It went from 3.0 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of production to as low as 0.6 MMb/d, he say. Production has yet to recover, but it may never do so:
...production has averaged around 0.5 MM/d below pre-strike levels ever since… and that’s being generous. 
In return, PdVSA has left around $100 billion on the table (gross). 
The situation with Venezuelan oil production has now deteriorated to the point where PdVSA stopped publishing official output statistics two years ago. 
"Here’s hoping Maduro can do better," wrote Schork about the new president. "But we doubt he will."

SCHORK: Venezuela Missed Out On $100 Billion Of Oil Wealth Thanks To Chavez

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foradoeixo/8050708012/">Fora do Eixo / Flickr</a></div>Hugo Chavez is dead — and <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> markets have so far shrugged, trading within less than a dollar's range since Tuesday's official announcement.
According to energy guru <keyword id="233253" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Stephen-Schork">Stephen Schork</keyword>, we shouldn't be surprised, given Chavez's illness was well known and the country's policies are unlikely to change in the short term.
<a href="http://www.cmegroup.com/education/market-commentary/energy/2013/03/daily-crude_1461.html?source=rss&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EnergyMarketCommentary+%28Energy+Market+Commentary%29">In a new note today</a>, Schork says <keyword id="2723" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Venezuela">Venezuela</keyword> remains way more exposed to U.S. market fluctuations than we do Venezuelan ones.
Mismanagement of the oil bonanza enjoyed under Chavez’s time in office was squandered on ideological white elephants. Thus, the irony of ironies… whereas the U.S. has grown less dependent on Venezuelan supplies of crude oil over the years, Venezuela has grown more dependent on supplies of U.S. refined products. For instance, U.S. exports of oil products to Venezuela have increased from 6.6 kb/d in 2004 to 85 kb/d in 2012. 
In other words, the U.S. buys crude oil from Venezuela and then sells it back to them (refined) at a higher price. 
Only a socialist could create a situation like that. 
If prices ever do move on Venezuela news, it'll be downward, given how severely Chavez cut production during his reign. Schork says the country is producing less than 2.5 MM barrels per day, "a fraction" of its true capability.

Venezuela Needs Our Money Way More Than We Need Their Oil

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) </div>In its latest short-term energy outlook, the EIA projects domestic crude production will hit 7.9 million barrels per day in 2014.
The last time we hit that mark was in 1989, <a href="http://www.cmegroup.com/education/market-commentary/energy/2013/01/daily-crude_22960.html?source=rss&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EnergyMarketCommentary+%28Energy+Market+Commentary%29">according to oil markets guru Stephen Schork</a>.
One of the major beneficiaries of this surge has been the railroad industry, he writes.
And among all rail companies, BNSF may be best positioned to take advantage of shipments of crude from America's <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> boom.
Three years ago, of course, <keyword id="6358963" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Warren-Buffett">Warren Buffett</keyword> <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/2009-11-03-berkshire-bnsf-buffett_N.htm">bought</a> BNSF railroad for $26 billion.
It's looking like a wise investment.
“We’re the 1,000-pound gorilla in the oil markets,” BNSF CEO Matt Rose <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-08/buffett-railroad-sees-crude-cargo-climbing-40-.html">told Bloomberg</a>. “Crude by rail is going to be really strong for us. It’s been a real benefit to us to replace some of that lost coal business.”
The company says it will boost crude-oil shipments by 40 percent this year, to 700,000 barrels per day, Bloomberg reports.
Schork points out that in declines in rail shipments across the industry of coal are being offset by shipments of crude. 
Whereas year-on-year coal movement’s in November 2012 were down 10½%, shipments of oil were up by 45% and shipments of crushed stone, gravel, sand (as in, fracking sand) were up by 7.8%. 
BNSF's raw material volumes were little changed in 2012 as competitors posted declines, based on Association of American Railroads data, Bloomberg said.

Warren Buffett Bought The Right Railroad

WTI crude <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> futures are getting slammed in today's session. Right now, they're down over 2.2 percent, and a big part of the drop came in just the last 20 minutes.
Metals like gold, silver, palladium, copper, aluminum, etc. are all tanking today as well.
Bloomberg's Moming Zhou reports:
West Texas Intermediate tumbled more than $2 a barrel following declines in metals on rumors that a commodity fund is liquidating.
WTI dropped as much as 2.8 percent as silver and platinum tumbled. Oil also decreased as gasoline futures slid for a second day from the highest level since September.
“There is a rumor that a fund is blowing up,” said Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group Inc. in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “Metals are getting hit and it’s spreading over to oil.”
Below is a chart showing the move in oil, including the spike in volume in the light blue bars below the price graph:
<div class="image-container click-to-enlarge" style="width:620px"><div class="image"><a title_source="Thinkorswim" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5124f516eab8eaec38000019-960/screen%20shot%202013-02-20%20at%2011.08.19%20am.png"></a></div>Thinkorswim</div>
And here is a chart of silver, which is off more than 3 percent today:
<div class="image-container click-to-enlarge" style="width:620px"><div class="image"><a title_source="Thinkorswim" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5124f647eab8ea703e000001-960/screen%20shot%202013-02-20%20at%2011.12.39%20am.png"></a></div>Thinkorswim</div>

Oil Is Getting Crushed On Heavy Volume As Commodities Get Massacred

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kuwait-oil-company-workers-attempt-to-extinguish-a-burning-news-photo/2374400">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></div>Last week, Bloomberg's Grant Smith <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-14/oil-trades-near-three-day-low-on-u-s-output-gain-iranian-talks.html">reported</a> <keyword id="6361649" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Goldman-Sachs">Goldman Sachs</keyword>' is sticking to a year-long call that the price differential between the Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude <keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">oil</keyword> indices would narrow to $7.50 in the second quarter and $5 in six months.
But in the past year, the gap has only widened, and now stands at about $18 — here's the chart, with Brent in red and WTI in blue.
<table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div>FRED</td></tr></table>
 "Goldman Sachs insists they are right and the market is wrong," Stephen Schork writes.
In a new note, Schork says that if you stuck with Goldman's recommendation, then you're probably down about 50 percent on your investment.
Here's how he explains it:
The June 2013 Brent/WTI spread averaged minus $12.24/b last August, when Goldman was telling clients to sell the spread (sell Brent at a $12.24 premium to WTI). However, by November the spread hit minus $17.95/b. Last month the spread had regressed back into – what our friend Dennis Gartman dubs as… The Box – i.e. the Fibonacci 50/62% retracement area from minus $12.98 to minus $11.80. 
Thus, if you stuck with this trade you had to sustain a 47% mark-to-market decline in capital before you got back to breakeven… only to then watch half of your equity evaporate over the last month. 
And he sees no reason to think Goldman will eventually be vindicated.
The lynchpin of the trade was the expansion of the Seaway pipeline running from Oklahoma to the Gulf, which was supposed to boost WTI prices by relieving Oklahoma's supply glut. In other words, it was supposed to close the spread. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/seaway-pipeline-and-gas-prices-2013-1">We wrote about this a few weeks ago. </a>
But now the company responsible for Seaway is saying the pipeline is not able to process the mixture of light and heavy crudes that have accumulated. 
As a result, Schork says, the future of the Brent/WTI spread — and Goldman's call — remains seriously murky.

Anyone Who's Sticking To This Goldman Energy Trade Is Totally Getting Crushed

<table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/401685160/sizes/m/in/photostream/">L Marie via Flickr</a></td></tr></table><keyword id="6359072" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="oil">Oil</keyword> prices are getting destroyed today after an extremely bearish Energy Department supplies report.
Brent is off -2.40 percent at $108, while WTI is down -2.05 percent at $95.19 as DOE reported inventories had increased 2.7 million barrels compared with just 2 million, according to Stephen Schork.
That's a big sell-off for one day.
But zooming out, it's clear futures are now in their second-consecutive year of trending declines.
Here's the chart for Brent. Going back to 2011, it's off nearly -14 percent.
<div class="image-container" style="width:620px"><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.investing.com/commodities/brent-oil">Investing.com</a></div>
 And here's the chart for crude/WTI, down nearly -20 percent for the same period:
<table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><a href="http://www.investing.com/commodities/crude-oil">Investing.com</a></td></tr></table>
This chart explains what's going on: over the same period, inventories have increased more than 11 percent.
<table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div><a href="http://twitpic.com/cgpvtc">Econoday/CME</a></td></tr></table>
 While part of this may have been due to the tepid economic recovery during this period, it's mostly more evidence <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/citi-the-world-is-moving-away-from-oil-2013-3">for Citi's Seth Kleinman and Ed Morse</a> that thanks to the rise of natural gas and higher fuel efficiency, "The End Is Nigh" for ever-rising oil demand, and thus prices too.

Oil Prices Are Tanking

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">REUTERS/Todd Korol</div></div></div>Canadian oil prices are now just $18 below the price of U.S. crude thanks to a series of new U.S. pipelines, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303417104579546092181949408?mod=djem_EnergyJournal">the Wall Street Journal reported this morning</a>.
This means the Keystone XL Pipeline is already obsolete. 
"Higher oil prices in Canada ... are a sign that oil-sands crude is finding its way to the U.S. even without the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline," Journal reporters Nicole Friedman and Chester Dawson said. "The resurgence in Canadian oil prices and energy stocks is further confirmation that the transportation problems that have prevented both Canada and the U.S. from enjoying the full benefits of the energy boom are easing."
Until recently, crude from Canada's booming tar sands was getting trapped in the Midwest and preventing it from getting to the Gulf, where it could be exported at market prices. 
But in January, engineers switched on the Seaway Pipeline, which connects the major crude delivery hub in Cushing, Okla., with Gulf refineries. And rail now transports 550,000 barrels of Canadian crude, when five years ago barely 1,000 barrels were processed.
As a result, the price of Canadian oil has since risen to $80.67 a barrel as of Tuesday, about $18 below WTI. In November the gap was as large as $40. 
"It's not a necessity today," Chris Theal, president of Kootenay Capital Management in Calgary, told BI. If current growth rates continue, he said, something like the Keystone may be needed. But Canada has gotten the hint from the Obama Administration, which has shown little interest in expediting the approval process, and begun considering new pipelines. Two would take Alberta crude to Canada's west coast, another to New Brunswick on its eastern shore. 
Analysts say that spread satisfies market conditions, and leaves Canadian producers in good shape. 
"This is truly the best time for Canadian oil-and-gas companies…in at least three or four years," Eric Nuttall, a portfolio manager in Canada, told the Journal.
A Senate initiative to override the executive branch is still finding footing - <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42124.pdf">but existing statutes seem to say</a> both the executive and legislature possess authority to regulate something like Keystone, and <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/05/140506-can-senators-force-approval-of-keystone-xl/">the bill would likely end up in court.</a> President Obama has shown no inclination to pressure the State Department to expedite its review of the pipeline.
"We have been of the opinion for nearly a year now that Keystone XL is dead," oil analyst Stephen Schork wrote this morning.

The Keystone Pipeline Is Quickly Becoming Obsolete

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices have been rallying hard since the end of June, and saw a huge bounce yesterday. 
Today, they came down:
<div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image"><a href="http://www.investing.com/commodities/crude-oil">Investing.com</a></div></div>
What gives? 
It was inevitable that WTI prices would climb as operators increased pipeline capacity, easing the supply glut in Cushing, Oklahoma, where physical oil demanded from NYMEX WTI futures contracts gets delivered and sent on to refineries.
BP also recently <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/bps-whiting-refinery-returns-to-full-operations-an-industrial-info-news-alert-1808540.htm">restarted full operations</a> at its refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which boosted demand, and imports have been constrained after flooding in Canada.
But the latest spike is already proving short lived, because the U.S. continues to pump out shale oil like never before. Production is <a href="http://www.eia.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_crude.html">now 16% higher</a> than where it was a year ago.
The current move in oil prices appears to have been fueled by huge trading volumes looking to take advantage of the large backwardation curve — long-dated future prices lower than spot — that's been forming.
"In spite of fact that supplies of crude oil at the NYMEX hub in Cushing, OK are brimming, guys living in Greenwich, CT and Bronxville, NY now own 5× the amount of physical oil sitting in tank," said energy expert Stephen Schork in a note Wednesday.
So the WTI surge may have been good news for traders, depending on their positions. And it's probably bad news for refiners, since their costs now go up.
But what about American drivers?
Here's the thing about gas prices: they are more sensitive to Brent oil prices, not WTI. Because refined products like gasoline can be exported, it makes sense for its price to fluctuate with Brent, which is dictated by supply-demand dynamics in the U.S.
Thus, as long as U.S. refiners are selling product into the international market, U.S. gasoline prices will continue to reflect the price of Brent.
Unfortunately, Brent has also been going up — but for reasons totally unrelated to the WTI moves (mostly news in Egypt and a slightly improving demand picture):
<div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image">Investing.com</div></div>
The only way for the shale boom to bring Brent down would be for the government to allow raw crude to be traded globally. <a href="http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/05/us-should-repeal-its-antique-ban-on-the-export-of-crude.html">That hasn't been allowed since 1979. </a>
Until that changes, if you wanna know where pump prices are going, Brent's your guy.

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