Oil and Gas prices going up again

Oil rocketed up $25 a barrel today on the open market as the government stood by. Tension and anxiety over the government’s $700 billion bailout plan mixed with a weak dollar and an expiring crude contract ignited today’s fire storm. At the high point of trading October Delivery of Light Sweet Crude was up $25.45 but by the closing bell it had slid back to settle at $120.92, still up $16.37.  The spike was a record for one day movement which smashed the previous record of single day trading at $10.75 set on June 6th of this year.

Trading was halted once it hit the $10 single day limit only to have the limit raised and trading resumed moments later.  An oil trader with Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, said the late surge in oil appeared to be the result of a large investment fund scrambling to cover their short positions, or bets that prices would fall.

This will rip the soft scabs off our still fresh scrapes with the high gas prices at the pumps in the past few months. Oil and by nature gas has been sliding down and recently slipped below the $100 with prices at the pump started to slip to tolerable rates. This turn will put the costs at the pump into instant rise. By dawn tomorrow eager gas station owners will be advertising gas prices up $0.15 to $0.20 a gallon over today’s prices. For many of us in the east that will put us back over the magic $4 mark once again as our prices had still not retreated to pre record pricing.

“Yankee ambassador in Caracas, to leave Venezuela”

Hugo Chavez said Thursday that he is recalling his own ambassador from Washington and expelling the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela. Claiming to be making the moves “in solidarity with Bolivia and the people of Bolivia.” in opposition to a claimed attempted coup d’etat mounted by the United States against Bolivia’s President Evo Morales.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid stated “Our embassy in Caracas is looking into these reports.”

Earlier Thursday, Chavez said he has uncovered a U.S. backed plot to remove him from power. “When there’s a new government in the United States, we’ll send an ambassador,” he said. “A government that respects Latin America.” He said the presence of two Russian warplanes on Venezuelan soil for a training exercise “is a warning” to the rest of the world that Venezuela’s allies include Russia and other countries. Chavez added that, should any country in Latin America be overthrown, he would interpret that to be “the green light to undertake military operations of any sort in those countries, and restore power back to the people.”

The two The Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers landed at Venezuela’s Libertador military airfield and “will spend several days carrying out training flights over neutral waters, after which they will return to the base,” the ministry added.

A Pentagon spokesman said such joint exercises between nations are not unusual. “We exercise all around the globe and have joint exercises with countries all over the world. So do many other nations.”

On Monday, Russia announced it might hold joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean. Russia denied any link between that announcement and the conflict in Georgia, although Russia has criticized U.S. support for Georgia. Russia has also objected to the missile defense system agreement, signed between the United States and Poland and the Czech Republic in August, that places a ground-based ballistic defense facility in the two eastern European nations. Russia has said the deal threatens its security, while the United States has said that the system is to guard against rogue states such as Iran.

This whole situation becomes mix the new Russian regime with the Chaves instabilities and park both of them with in striking distance of the United States borders. Exercises or not. It is an uncomfortable position for us as a nation to be in at this time in history. I am reminded of Cuba and the 1960’s.

Anyone else?