Maybe we'll mark June 10 as the date that the world's consumers rose up, and grumbling went to open resistance.
This is being written mid-morning US Eastern time, and the news from around the world, a world that is seeing prices go up just about every single day, is grim. Things have happened before this date, but today, it seems as if a great big resistance, sometimes violent, is taking over the consuming nations. There's little news that hints things might get better soon.
Consider these developments:
--A Portuguese truck driver was killed as he tried to stop a lorry at a road block set up by truckers protesting against high fuel prices.
--The British government is working with UK fuel suppliers to help organize contingent fuel supplies ahead of planned, four-day strike by tankers drivers which deliver to Shell's UK fuel stations. Tanker drivers employed by Shell's UK haulage partners, Hoyer and Suckling Transport, have threatened to begin a four-day strike from Friday after they failed to reach an pay deal with employers last week.
--Two discouraging things on the supply side: Libya's 45,000 b/d Al-Jurf offshore oil field, shut down in late April due to technical problems, is likely to remain shut for another two to three months. And a natural gas outage at a field operated by Apache in Australia is likely to last two months, and is certain to increase demand for diesel as a substitute, never mind that diesel already is the most expensive barrel in the market.
--This is not a fuel protest per se, but a further 48 hour strike has been declared at France's biggest oil ports of Fos and Lavera from Thursday at 6 am local time. There are four oil refineries close to the Marseille hub, accounting for a third of France's 1.95 million b/d refining capacity. Strikes have been intermittently stopping oil traffic at Fos and Lavera for almost two months.
--Hundreds of truck and bus drivers in Hong Kong staged a territory-wide protest on Tuesday demanding the government drop a fuel tax, following similar demonstrations in Europe over the oil price surge. Around 500 of the drivers marched to the government's offices, while 300 truck, minibus and rubbish collection vehicle drivers mounted a slow-drive protest in different parts of the southern Chinese city.
--Police escorted 20 tanker trucks taking fuel into Barcelona on Tuesday as a protest strike by thousands of truckers against rising fuel prices caused shortages and huge tailbacks on the Spanish-French border. Tens of thousands of truckers in Spain, France and Portugal are on strike or joining the protests -- leading to warnings of shortages of fuel and other essential items. French railway workers launched their own stoppage, increasing the transport chaos.
--And to top it all off, Russian energy giant Gazprom believes the price of oil is likely to hit $250/barrel "in the foreseeable future," driven by growing energy demand and competition for resources, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Tuesday. "Today we are witnessing a serious jump in the price of hydrocarbons. The price is moving towards an absolutely new high level," he said, as quoted in a Gazprom statement.
--And against this backdrop, Saudi Arabia will call "soon" for a meeting of oil producing and consuming countries to discuss oil prices. Details remain somewhat vague. But in its statement, the Saudis reiterated a long-held view: "The Kingdom, as a major oil producing country, knows that the oil market has enough supply and rising commercial stocks of oil."
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