Tim Evans Quotations

The OPEC demand revision is more of a reminder than anything else. Between the high level of crude stocks and the downward revisions to demand, the price should have trouble climbing like it has done this week.

We've rung the bell at $600 and now we're perhaps ready to consolidate before we consider higher price levels.

Basically we hit some support levels ... and if it can't go down, it's got to go up.

From the current snapshot, (electricity) conditions look a lot more similar to last year than they appear different.

If we were to see another major storm, we could have damage on damage.

I was looking for a rebound in imports as some of the activity along the Gulf Coast came back to normal.

It is pretty clear they were attempting to move this oil into a crude oil market where there was already a surplus.

It is a surprising report in just about all respects. But I think it is something that we have to expect in times like these that the data doesn't always fit into a neat little model of what we think ought to be happening.

Really, we've had some focus (on oil) since mid-February, when both markets made a significant low, and both markets had a near retest of those lows on Wednesday. Oil is emerging as the focus for the gold market as a surrogate for general commodity inflation. Without that kind of commodity inflation, then gold becomes a less attractive investment.

Really, it's just a rush to cash in profits on what was really a spectacular move higher.

We're really just trying to achieve a little bit of a balance between follow-through selling after Tuesday's big drop and a little bit of bargain hunting on the other side of the ring, trying to pick a bottom here.

There is a very strong consensus that gold will continue its trend higher this year and that, in itself, is a warning sign.

The fact that their pricing mechanism is market-related minimizes the risk that a physical shortage would arise.

To put that offer on the table for the next three months, it's clear to me that they're willing to steer the price lower, ... They really don't want every U.S. consumer to park their SUV and buy gasoline-electric hybrids -- they don't want to trigger that kind of consumer response.

We wanted to connect with people as strongly as some of our great advertising campaigns of the past did -- such as with Beattie with Maureen Lipman or Bob Hoskins in 'It's good to talk' -- but in a way that's relevant to today's modern relationships.

There is nothing close to a physical shortage going on here. Instead, what the market is holding here is a significant, and in fact growing, implied risk premium.

There is so far an insatiable appetite for holding more inventory. We're still not recognizing it as a glut.

Warm temperatures now forecast to persist on into early February undercut physical demand for heating fuels.

Everything pretty much came within the range of expectations so there were no dramatic surprises here.

Consumers would benefit from more refinery capacity and more competition in the refinery business.

Current chilly temperatures in the Northeast U.S. also helped boost prices, although these are not expected to last.

Crude oil may have been able to trigger short covering off the surprise 1.3 million-barrel draw from last week, but inventories are still at their second-highest weekly total since April 1999.

The situation is not going to get better in the short term. Perhaps it will get worse.

Profit-taking was the most widely employed term for what (happened Friday), but we see the potential for this simple turn to develop into a much more substantial decline, as the fundamentals behind the push higher were not all that strong to begin with.

Africa has 2.3 workers per 1,000 people. The Americas have 24.8 per 1,000 people. If you are a doctor in Africa, you have 10 fold (more) diseases to deal with compared to your colleagues in other regions.

The oil companies themselves aren't interested in building new refineries and will tend to denigrate the chances of any new investors actually succeeding in their business. They'll say, 'What does Richard Branson know about oil refineries?' He doesn't have to know about that part of the business, but he can easily see that oil refiners are making a margin far superior to what he's making in the airline business.

Despite the surprise 1.3 million-barrel drop in DOE crude stocks for last week, inventories in the market remain near April 1999 highs.

The bulls are trying to put up a fight here, trying to make a case that the build in stocks and the drop in price over the past month haven't really hurt all that bad.

This is really just some short-term consolidation. We are inside of yesterday's range.

This is really a happy accident as far as OPEC is concerned.

The weather outlook remains a potential fundamental support for these markets, but it has been so well advertised and has failed to boost prices to such an extent as to suggest that it is still too little winter, too late in the season to matter.

This could be almost worse than Katrina because there are 4 million barrels of refining in Texas areas, much more than there was in New Orleans. (Texas) is the other major refining heart.

There may be more cycles of hyperventilation yet to come as Hurricane Rita blows through the Gulf of Mexico, but the DOE data for last week was a calming influence.

There's a lot of people who want to do the right thing. My kids are out in the orchard, too. I don't want to poison them.

A Bush status quo results in somewhat higher oil prices both in the short and the longer term in my view,

It's having trouble getting out of its own way. Fundamentally, the CPI data from this morning was really quite mixed.

The numbers are sufficient, but there are major constraints. There is a huge mal-distribution of workers in the country and most health workers are found in urban areas.

It's staging what I would call a catch-up move. After resisting the upward pull of silver all week long, the market couldn't hold back any more and is making up for lost time here.

Stocks have a tendency toward a counter-seasonal rise in early January ... but the mild readings this time around make a further 2 to 3 million barrel build more likely than the 1.1 million barrel five-year average increase.

They can continue to pump away and ring the cash register, ignoring the looming Q2 supply/demand surplus just like everyone else.

There still may be ample opportunity for price chopping off storm updates over the balance of the week, but the market is looking considerably more relaxed today.

The natural-gas market is on a completely different page now, with profit taking on short positions pushing prices higher, despite what are still impressively bearish prospects. This week will be warmer than last week, limiting the extent to which storage might be drawn down.

I'm surprised by the drop in crude stocks and the further decline in crude oil imports,

I'm not sure this is the start of a new trend in crude oil stocks and it probably reflects more of a desire on the part of refiners to limit the material they hold than it does a lack of supply,

In the short run, it means more oil drained from the market into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

If you're talking about a 400,000 barrels per day refinery next to a French Chateau in the Loire valley, the timeline is infinite. If you're looking at an industrialized part that already includes an oil refinery, it's much less of a big deal.

In a ballroom, all you can do is dance and eat. We wanted to provide more than just dancing. They ate and danced, and when they got tired, they went out and looked at exhibits. Then they came back and danced some more.

Heating oil and natural gas are...faced with significant warming trends that have brought an abrupt end to the heating season.

The gasoline build is substantial and it confirms the price weakness we've been seeing over the last several days.

The downside looks wide open at this point. We've got lots of inventory, and worldwide supply is going to continue to grow into the year.

The markets are bracing for Thursday's DOE reports, with traders cringing since the recent (supply) trends have been bearish.

The markets are all doing their best spin jobs off the latest round of DOE data, but there were really no significant surprises. The overall economic importance of the data is still bearish.

The market has used considerable energy just to reach this level. We see risk of exhaustion now that it's here.

The market is certainly tightened by this event.

The laws of economics still apply and higher prices call forth more supply while dampening demand. The long view of the market's history, filled with booms and busts, is on our side.