Ms Chu: WTI Oil Will Be Back to $90 In a Month; Supplies Are Overflowing At Cushing; The President: We Need More US Production

Link here for story about American oil supply at Cushing, Oklahoma, overflowing.

The Bakken is robust at $40/barrel. -- Greg Hill, Hess, January 27, 2010, 4Q09 earnings conference call.

Link here for story about the President saying we need more US production to decrease oil imports. 

US President Barack Obama set a goal of reducing imports of foreign oil by one-third in a little more than a decade, and said that US production will need to rise significantly as a result. That includes adopting incentives to encourage federal leaseholders to begin producing more quickly from tracts they already hold, he said.

“Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003, and for the first time in more than a decade, oil we imported accounted for less than half the liquid fuel we consumed,” he said in an address to students at Georgetown University. “To keep reducing that reliance on imports, my administration is encouraging offshore oil exploration and production—as long as it’s safe and responsible.” 

That and 75 cents will buy you a cup of coffee.

Supply shortfall? Mideast turmoil? Strength of the dollar? 

After following the Federal Reserve's lead for over a decade, the European Central Bank is poised to launch a series of interest rate hikes before the U.S. central bank for the first time in the ECB's history.

The change from the traditional pattern reflects the ECB's greater preoccupation with inflation pressures, as well as its higher level of discomfort with the emergency bond-buying programmes run by central banks.

But the "decoupling" of ECB and Fed policies is also the result of an historic shift in the global economy: the increased influence that Asia, rather than the United States, is having on the euro zone's economy.

US inflation to be serious within months: Wal-Mart's CEO. 

Inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

Price of gasoline has doubled under current administration.

Feeling pain at the pump? Gas prices have doubled since Mr. Obama took office. According to the GasBuddy gasoline price tracking web site, the price of a gallon of regular gas was around $1.79 when Mr. Obama took office. Today the national average is $3.58. The lowest average price in the continental United States is $3.31 in Tulsa Oklahoma, the highest is $4.14 in Santa Barbara, CA. Four-dollar-a-gallon gas has arrived on average throughout California, and a number of other states are headed in that direction.