Oil emergency?

NYMEX nominal price record today at $56.46


These prices will look cheap within a few years.

A paltry promise of 1/2 million extra barrels per day from OPEC had zero effect as the closing spot price for a barrel of crude oil leapt $1.41 to break the $56 mark, the highest nominal oil price since the NYMEX contract began trading over 20 years ago. Alarm rippled through the market as it noted unexpected drops in levels of gasoline and distillate fuels, which include heating oil and diesel.

Is this an oil emergency in the making? Will there be 1973-1979-style shortages? I don't know when those might occur, they could unless prices rise to the point of demand control, thought to be somewhere around $80 oil. The price of fuels is guaranteed to remain high for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be opened to exploitation by oil companies, on a 51-49 senate vote. ANWR may be producing 1 million barrels per day a couple decades from now. But as OPEC's promise of an immediate 1/2 million barrels illustrates, ANWR will have no effect on the developing oil emergency.