All Posts Tagged With: "Chakib Khelil"
Disinformation Age
OPEC lies, the SUV dies.
By Clifford D. May
The folks over at OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, must think we’re pretty stupid. The other day, Chakib Khelil, the current OPEC president, asserted that “the intrusion of bioethanol on the market” is responsible for 40 percent of recent increases in the price of oil.
Now how exactly would that work? How does growing sugarcane in Brazil or corn in Iowa push up the price of oil sucked from holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela? If we roasted the corn and put the sugar in coffee — instead of making it into alcohol fuels — would oil prices go up less?
And if mixing a little ethanol in with gasoline has caused much of oil’s latest price rise, does it follow that replacing oil entirely with alternative fuels would result in even higher oil prices? By that logic, if everyone switched from Coca Cola to Kool-Aid, the price of a bottle of Coke would go up rather than down. (And if you believe that, “drinking the Kool-Aid” might be an apt description for what you’ve been up to.)
Look Whose Blaming Ethanol Now!
by Gary Truitt
This reminds me of the story of the adolescent who was charged with killing both his parents and then asked the judge for mercy because he was an orphan.
OPEC president Chakib Khelil has a new culprit for the rising cost of oil–ethanol. Mr. Khelil says about 40% of the recent rise in oil prices can be chalked up to ethanol, which accounts for about 1% of the world’s transportation fuel. The other 60%, apparently, is due to a weak dollar and “geopolitical worries.” The problem: OPEC’s boss doesn’t lay out the logic explaining why ethanol blended into gasoline is to blame for high oil prices.
The world ethanol industry was quick to respond to this nonsense.