[pup55]

Dear Forum Dwellers:
I hope that you will join me in tracking the public statements from Peter Beutel, so-called "oil analyst" from Cameron Hanover.

I would like to start the fun with the following memorable quote from September 2005:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;Price declines could be slow this week, maybe with a bubble burst at some point in the future," said analyst Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover. "It does appear we've turned the corner here in this market. I don't think we'll see prices at these levels again anytime in the next five years."

[joewp]

Hey, this is fun!

Here's a good one from last year with a video:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��This is going to be going on all over the planet,” said Beutel. “At $70 a barrel you could probably find oil in your own back yard. You’d just have to dig awfully deep.”

Beutel says that over the next five years or so increased drilling activity worldwide could send oil prices crashing — and pump prices as low as $1 a gallon in some parts of the country.

[DantesPeak]

If my memory is correct, when oil was about $70 or so earlier this year, he said it would never get past $85. When it went past $85 to about $94, he then said it would never get past $98.50.

Well he has been correct about the last prediction made a few weeks ago so far. I haven't seen him give much, if any, explanation as to why his earlier predictions have been so far off.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') would like to start the fun with the following memorable quote from September 2005:

[pup55]

He was on NPR just today:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')e then turned to Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover, who said: “We are going to see inflationary creep, then we’re going to see a Fed reaction, and then I’m almost certain we’re going to see a recession.”

[DeepOil]

Here's the latest from Peter. Blathering on about how we will find more new large fields since price is so high and how they will save us.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n all of the excitement of the bull market a number of economists forgot that that the price mechanism works,'' said Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. The price mechanism works by discouraging demand and by encouraging exploration and development of new supplies.''

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, announced Nov. 8 that the Tupi field may hold 5 billion to 8 billion barrels.

The field, the second-largest found in the past 20 years, may hold as much as Norway's 8.5 billion barrels of reserves, according to BP Plc. It could also boost Brazil's reserves by almost two-thirds, transforming it from a small net exporter into a major supplier to world markets.

``Last week's announcement from Brazil may be the vanguard of similar discoveries ahead,'' Beutel said. ``I think we will see supply grow in the next two years. High prices have led to increased supply in the past and I see no reason for that to change now.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '`')`In all of the excitement of the bull market a number of economists forgot that the price mechanism works,'' said Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. ``The price mechanism works by discouraging demand and by encouraging exploration and development of new supplies.''

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, announced Nov. 8 that the Tupi field may hold 5 billion to 8 billion barrels.

``Last week's announcement from Brazil may be the vanguard of similar discoveries ahead,'' Beutel said. ``I think we will see supply grow in the next two years. High prices have led to increased supply in the past and I see no reason for that to change now.''

[DantesPeak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')The immediate temptation is to believe that this is a correction in a bull market - and the odds certainly justify that belief," said Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover.

"We could have a rally, even another last gasp attempt at $100 (a barrel). But it looks like this leg of the bull market is near its end."

[DantesPeak]

In a Bloomberg interview, Beutel quotes the wrong figures on OPEC production (making it sound like all of OPEC's production cuts in 2006 were 100% effective, instead of about 500,000 bpd over those quotas).

Not letting either the facts, not his prior erroneous predictions, get in the way of new forecasts, Beutel says that oil is $20 over priced. His best guess is that oil will be $75 to $80 in three months, with a possibility of a further price collapse on a dollar rally.

Please note that it is within the realm of possibility he could be correct, since markets can and will fluctuate - especially as it becomes more well known that US companies have incurred hundreds of billions $ in losses in regards to mortgage related financial products. However more likely than a deflationary collapse is an inflationary price meltup.

Bloomberg A/V

[Valdemar]

Believe and do the exact opposite of what Beutel says. Gotcha.

[shortonoil]

My father had a saying, “if you are going act as an expert on something, you should know a little bit about it”. Beutel seems to have failed the “sniff test”. He’s not an expert!

But unfortunately, in the Post Peak world where time is becoming a premium, before the lights start going out, birds like Beutel can do a lot of damage. When you are sitting in the dark, eating your last can of cold beans, remember Beutel. If you get a chance, tell someone what happens when idiots get a chance to run the world.

[Leanan]

Via WaterThrush, about that WSJ front page story on peak oil:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell, the CNBC folks briskly disposed of the WSJ report 10 minutes into their 6 am Squawk Box show - Peter Buetel, oil "expert", immediately pointed to the Brazil oilfield as proof that there's much more oil out there to find.

According to Buetel, the problem is OPEC - they're not giving us enough of our oil ...

[Leanan]

Beutel is on CNN right now. He blames two things:

1) Fed rate cut. Oil was heading down before then.

2) OPEC cuts. They still haven't given us back the 1.2 million barrels they cut last year.

[DantesPeak]

Before the oil market rose sharply today, Beutel was out trying to talk the market down again, and disparage oil bulls - who didn't misjudge the market like he did.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '`')`The market has become a victim of its own success,'' said Cameron Hanover's Beutel. ``If you're buying oil the ability to tell yourself you've bought value has gone away. We're destroying demand, getting away from some of the real value at this level.''

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')An OPEC increase and a Fed refusal to lower rates could well be the one-two punch this market has been waiting for to sell off," Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at consultancy Cameron Hanover, wrote in a research note Wednesday.

[pup55]

Alert: Permabear Peter Beutel now flipping to the bullish side:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t seems that a large amount of the buying was fresh buying, and it looks like it may have come from large traders who got out before Thanksgiving - and who may have decided to get long before any New Year rush to buy for 2008," Peter Beutel, president of the U.S. energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, told AP.

Beutel added, "It suggests that prices may now want to make another run at $100 (a barrel) and possibly beyond."

[DantesPeak]

After being bearish for months all the way up, and extra bearish on the last $10 drop in the price of oil, he's now doing bigger flips than you will see in a three ring circus.

The nearly $5 move in oil the other day may represent something more than just speculators jumping in and out of the market - coming right after the announcement of the Fed's plan to rapidly expand the Fed's monetary base (or more simply - money 'printed' electronically).

Perhaps Beutel caught on to the fact that monetary inflation may be as roughly important as supply/demand considerations.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')A weakening U.S. dollar, political tension in the Middle East and oil's growing appeal to financial investors have also fuelled the price run up.
"All of the factors that pushed us above $80 are now moving us higher," said Peter Beutel, analyst at Cameron Hanover.
"Until we get more supply or demand starts to take a hit, there is no reason we can't see any number."

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'r')ude prices retreated because of "profit taking pressure," Peter Beutel, president of energy consultant Cameron Hanover writes in a note to clients. That is, those who bought at cheaper prices decided to sell when the price topped $100.

• Falling demand for gasoline eventually should moderate prices. "Thirteen-week average gasoline demand is down 0.45% against a year ago," Beutel says.

Gasoline demand usually runs 1% to 2% ahead of the previous year, U.S. Energy Information Administration data show.

Despite the recent drop in demand, Beutel writes, "All trends remain pointed higher."

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')The pendulum does swing much faster than we give it credit for," says Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover.

Beutel says $37 a barrel is likely, even $20 a barrel isn't out of the question