The Hindu Business Line : Oil talk's getting cruder, ruder

OIL companies have their swords unsheathed, and we can hear their war cries demanding a minimum hike of Rs 5 in fuel prices. Hidden in parking lots, away from their glare, are the common people, asking questions, in a hush.

Price hike, again?

Yes, it's like that. "A hike a fortnight keeps losses away," is what the doc told our oil givers.

But, without a hike over the last several weeks, they've been whining hard.

To add to their misery, the PM is telling them to put on a human face. Yet, it's most likely that there may be a hefty hike, and when that happens, try to put on a brave face.

Aren't we talking crude?

True, crude is the subject matter; and the truth about it is cruder, rather, ruder.

There was this Goldman Sachs report that came in a few days back saying that the market has slipped into a `super-spike' period, which is when all bad things happen - such as "a multi-year trading band of oil prices high enough to meaningfully reduce energy consumption."

Meaning, oil prices will be so high that it will make no meaning to spend your energy to earn money to buy energy because what you spend thus will be more than your income, so you should be happier without energy.

Isn't that `demand destruction'?

Exactly, the very phrase that came in the super-spike report repeatedly, as http://english.aljazeera.net points out.

"In oil and energy terms, this is shorthand for a major recession," explains the site.

Why should oil talk sound so oily?

Smooth and slippery is how statements are worded.

For example, a few days ago, Alan Greenspan connected to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association Conference via satellite and spoke of: prices `much more elevated'; demand with `a low short-term elasticity'; `shift in the spread between spot prices and near-term futures that has facilitated inventory hedging'; citizens faced with `difficult decisions and tradeoffs to make outside the market process'; `limited substitution possibilities across fuels have resulted in persistent cost differentials'; and so on. By the time you try to understand the gobbledygook prices would have risen.

Isn't Mani doing something?

He's doing many things, ever since he was finished with Savarkar.

Thus, even as Manmohan is pushing the bus to Pakistan, Mani is dragging a pipe to Iran. He talks gas, and we should be lucky if, at the receiving end of the pipes, we get lots of that, which is when we can condone his grins on the TV whenever price hike new flashes hit us hard. Also, he's working on energy ties with Saudi Arabia. For, he believes in future perfect.

Somebody told me 100. Whose mark is that?

A perfect score, it may seem, but the bad news is that some economists are cautioning us that crude oil prices may touch $100 by 2010.

How one wished these chaps got their year wrong, and the right one should have been 2100!

As if to counter, there's another expert who predicts that oil price could plunge to $28 a barrel by 2008, or is that 2800?

Meanwhile, oil talk is only getting cruder and ruder.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in

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Oil talk's getting cruder, ruder