Wednesday Morning News And Views -- Part III -- IEA Getting Ready To Release Strategic Oil Reserves? -- The Keystone XL No Longer Matters To Refiners

No red line in Syria: I'm glad we got this cleared up: President O'Bama is now stating he never "personally" set a red line in Syria. Wow, I can't make this stuff up. He is perennial 5 y/o who keeps getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, has an alibi, and never suffers the media consequences.  Does anyone even listen to him any more, other than the RINOs (Boehner, et al). It seems they jumped on the bandwagon incredibly quickly. I'm still waiting to Nancy Pelosi on this one. I see that old dove Howard Dean now has talons; he supports strike on Syria because ... well, I guess it's just the thing to do to support this president...wow, the Mideast Muslims are going to be upset....and Putin...moving more ships into the Mediterranean...

The Keystone XL is history, at least for the refiners. The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

U.S. companies (ENB, VLO, EPD, CVE) that refine oil increasingly doubt that the controversial Keystone XL (TRP) pipeline expansion will ever be built, and now they don't particularly care, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Well, that was short and to the point. Wow, think of the millions of dollars landowners along the route would have received over the years. Easy come, easy go. They can thank out-of-state activist environmentalists who like to see increased truck traffic and increased rail traffic. [Later: a reader notes the following with regard to income from a non-descript pipeline: 3-4 yrs ago the Bison natural gas pipeline was built across North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. In Bowman County, ND, a portion of the pipeline goes from the northeast county line to the southwest county line. Bowman county receives approximately $800,000 per year in tax revenue,  $2,000 per day ... not bad for a pipeline in the ground. -- Excellent point; thank you for taking time to write. It just amazes me how much revenue the state of Nebraska was willing to give up for a few out-of-state activists.]

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The Libyans have apparently grown tired of the oil and gas industry and want out. Rigzone is reporting:

The virtual shutdown of Libya's oil industry has squeezed supply as tightly as when the International Energy Agency (IEA) ordered a rare release of strategic oil reserves during the civil war in 2011.

Brent crude for immediate delivery has surged to its highest in a year and the cost of alternative supplies has jumped, increasing costs for oil refiners and ultimately consumers.

"The loss of Libyan crude oil is a major disruption. The current situation is as bad as in 2011," said Olivier Jakob of consultant Petromatrix in Zug. "We don't see how the IEA will be able to stay quiet for long."

Strikes at ports and pipelines have shrunk Libyan exports to around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) - less than a tenth of capacity - and taken overall global outages from the Middle East and Africa above 3 million bpd - some 3.5 percent of global demand.

Supply breaks and the threat of U.S. military action against Syria pushed Brent futures above $117 a barrel last week. It traded around $115 on Tuesday even as the prospect of an imminent strike has faded.

That is not far from the $120-mark that in 2011 prompted the White House to go ahead with an IEA-coordinated strategic oil release in response to disruptions caused by the war in Libya - - only the third in the organization's history.