At 70 dollars per barrel governments seem prepared to act.
Before, it looked as though it was going to hit Houston and Port Arthur. Now, it looks like it's going to hit Corpus Christi, which is less important as far as refining is concerned, and it's also more on the periphery of the platforms.
Refiners are exhausted, like runners in mid-marathon. They've been pushing very hard since last year. As a practical matter, these things have limits. If you push too hard, capacity drops.
It's true that in the short term people find it difficult to change. What happens in the long run is that the transport and industry tends to be efficient, and conservation will occur.
Internationally, I've seen the interest in New Zealand art is huge, ... but we have never had an event to showcase it.
We notice oil has been rallying at the same time as copper and gold. That we think has to do with the funds.
Each problem is just a reminder as to how close to the edge we are running. The refiners have been running a marathon for two years, they are exhausted.
We find in a number of provincial centres where people are setting up galleries, they can have no idea what to charge for commission or the business of running a gallery, let alone documentation for the artist. So this booklet is a guideline for what you should provide for the artist.
Other than the weather, and hurricanes, and refineries going down, and Saudi Arabia and Iran, and strong economic statistics, there really is no reason why crude oil prices should be so high. It must be speculation, don't you think?
The market can't keep rallying on global supply worries. When it looks to the US and sees stocks are rising yet again it tends to calm things down slightly.