The brittish ship has been released by iran, the iranian ship has been released by UK -it was a deal- but only a hour later the US has arrested it again. So the news of iran and USA arguing is nothing out of the ordinary and of no interest for newspapers in europe.
That the iranian ship has beenbrealeased as a part of a deal is nothingbthe british government wants the public to know all about so it has just been silenced in the medias in the UK. Elsewhere it wasnt silenced.
Hi @Falstaff
The Iranian oil tanker, Grace 1 was originally impounded by the British in Gibraltar for potentially breaking EU sanctions against delivering oil supplies to Syria. It was subsequently released on assurances from Iran that the oil was not bound for Syria. However, upon its release the Iranians changed the tanker’s name to Adrian Darya and the US issued a court order for impounding it on other grounds, i.e. breaching US sanctions against (anyone) buying oil from Iran.
But the tanker was not impounded and the last I heard it was seen close to the Syrian coastline, possibly getting ready to off-load its oil, and possibly via ship-to-ship transfer!!
As far as I know the Swedish ship Stena Impero, which is registered in the UK is still impounded by Iran but some of the crew have been released. I hadn’t heard any news that the ship itself had yet been release.
Yes that is certainly so on these highly automated sites, but then it is still at least a very lucky situation that absolutely no one was there at the time - especially even security people considering the recent tensions in that entire area and the major significance of this particular facility.
Let us put it down to good fortune and hope there are no people trapped, but alive, in bankers under that fire which is under control - but not yet extinguished!!!
Thanks for the pics above - interesting! 
Also, @Falstaff and @MrDE good to see you both here on this thread, it is a kind of lonely place to be - so thanks for the visit! 
I pop in fairly frequently - but wasn’t quite sure whether you prefer comments or not. Good thread 
You are always welcome here. The very idea of this thread being in the “lobby” is that it can freely include anything by anyone!.
And the title is to suggest that most things are only partially known or assumed or understood - and therefore worthy of discussion 
But it naturally trends towards trading issues for obvious reasons!..
Didn’t really dare get involved with my staples, oil and SP500, today for fear of stops being hit in volatile moves.
But I certainly wanted to get involved in something and, inspired by @Alphahavoc, took a short position on EURAUD.
It looked likely to drop further since the likelihood of anything positive at this stage from a first meeting between Boris Johnson and Jean-Claude Juncker was slightly less than zero percent!! And there was that daily 200SMA below just begging to be broken…
So there we are - no much, but something in the bank from a freaky Monday!
PS, Did Juncker really serve the British snails for lunch??? Was that a some kind of a “statement”??? 
Now I have read a different version. Apparently lunch in the Luxemburg Bouquet Garni restaurant comprised oysters and a rather large dose of Pollocks! 
Yes, I really can believe that!!
The conspiracy begins! Let’s see if it resurfaces at a Trump property!
An oil minister has quoted at saying that prices shouldn’t be affected by the cut in output. What!?!? How is that remotely possible?
I think this will be the big question. How bad are the damages. Reports this morning put them at worse that originally thought.
Since the oil production is not affected by the cut of gasoline production the cut is not affecting the oil prices.
A refinery doesnt produce oil,it processes it.
What is affecting the oil pfices is the political situation between iran and SA
Okay, I missed those distinctions, oil vs gas, and production vs refining.
Thanks for the explanation .
Hi @MrDE and @forexforexforex!
Whilst it is true that the function of a refinery is to convert crude oil into refined products such as gasoline, aircraft fuels, diesel, heating oil, and other non-fuel products, I think this is not the case with this Abqaiq facility that has been so badly damaged.
The Abqaiq plant’s chief function is to act as a hub which collects the raw crude oil from the oil fields and processes it into a safe and stable form of crude oil for transportation by tankers. It basically removes the hydrogen sulphide and other impurities from the oil and reduces vapour pressure. But its output is not refined products, it is still crude oil.
And that is where the problem lies. The issue is the halving of Saudi Arabia’s daily output of crude oil not refined products. A sudden loss of crude oil suppllies representing 5%of the global daily demand is a huge problem - on a par with the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Apparently the infrastructure in Abqaiq is both large and uniquely designed for its purposes. The estimates for its repair are now stretching out into weeks and maybe months - and there is the ongoing fear of further actions of a similar kind. This is not a little limpet mine on the side of a tanker - this is an act on a scale usually associated with a large regional, or even global, war.
So the issue is indeed about crude oil supply/demand. And whilst demands can be met in the short term from global land and floating storage and the release of strategic reserves, an actual increase in daily supply on this scale is not so easy.
Its quite ironic that prices have now surged and somewhat stabilized for the time being at levels that SA would have otherwise been very happy about - but not at the cost of half of its production! But I can imagine that the other producer countries are trying to hide their smiles as their budget deficits suddenly are looking much rosier!
Interestingly, the US has come a long way in becoming energy self-sufficient and I doubt this act will have much impact domestically there, since the US is already becoming a net exporter of some grades of crude oil. But the US refineries also need other grades that are not available domestically but I don’t think SA is a provider of those, rather it is, for example, Canada.
So I think we are going to see upward pressures on oil prices until there are signs that A) the SA supply is coming back on line, B) sufficient reserves are being released, and C) there is a reduction in the risks of further such major attacks on global oil supply infrastructure and transportation - these are three very big issues! 
Good points @anon46773462 but they all play little role in the crude oil price. The shortfall of processing power is easily compensated by a few tankers shipping oil to other refineries.
The reason for oil rise is pure political. Today its falling 5%+ only because trump said he wants no war. It possibly will be back to where it started by the end of the week. All depending on the tone of leaders when talking to press.
I think you are considerably oversimplyiing the problem here. It is not a question of just re-routing the oil. The raw crude being extracted in SA needs to be cleansed before it is safe to transport and that is the process that has been incapacitated - not its transportation, nor its refining.
Of course, as already mentioned, there is plenty of crude oil in storage elsewhere and other countries can up their production. But the logistics of arranging this and the shipping requirement is no simple task when the quantity is some 5-6mill b/d. For example, the entire Iranian supply prior to sanctions was only around2 mill b/d. - but I sincerely hope you are right! The last thing we want is soggy global economy with excessively high oil prices!
Well, I certainly wouldn’t argue with that! 
Surely, that is a large portion of the pricing in most markets most of the time - at least on a short term basis.
But I think I would prefer to call it sentiment that drives the price rather than politics - and naturally politicians feed sentiment for that very reason - but it is not the only element in sentiment. Mr Trump is perhaps a mastermind in manipulating sentiment - something, I think, that Mr Johnson also fancies himself as, but I am not so convinced as far as he is concerned - at least not yet!
I certainly do hope that things get back to “normal” soon. It is getting quite difficult to define a probability in directional trading.
I am so embarrassed that the best I’ve managed is 11 pips on S&P today and I am becoming progrssively more content sidelined rather than looking for a trade with a microscope!
This just popped up on the news re that sudden drop in oil prices today:
“Oil prices fell sharply on late Tuesday morning as Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia’s oil output may return to normal more quickly than earlier reports had suggested. Oil production is expected to return to normal within two to three weeks, anonymous Reuters sources suggested, contrary to yesterday’s reports that took a more pessimistic view of how long it would take for Aramco’s production to come back online.”
Would be interesting to track the long positions that were established over the past month-and-a-half or so building up to this.
It’s my understanding there are things called dark pools where large institutional blocks of stock can be purchased.hidden from public view… Not registering on volume charts.
KC
KC
Lady Luck again smiled on me today! 🥳
My sentiments exactly!
Good to hear that! 
But I suspect it is more due to your Kickapoo trading shrewdness!
Hi @frandlost
Now that is something I had never heard of!
But a quick google revealed:
" Dark pools are an ominous-sounding term for private exchanges or forums for securities trading. However, unlike stock exchanges, dark pools are not accessible by the investing public. Also known as “dark pools of liquidity,” these exchanges are so named for their complete lack of transparency. Dark pools came about primarily to facilitate block trading by institutional investors who did not wish to impact the markets with their large orders and obtain adverse prices for their trades." Investopedia
So it seems you are right! Not an encouraging thought at all! 
