Spain vs Argentina

This sounds like one of the best football matches possible. Lionel Messi against the entire spanish midfield, however, that is not what will be discussed here.

The company is called YPF. It started out as an Argentinian PSU (much like India's ONGC) but later on when crude prices hit rock bottom the Argentinian government disinvested its holdings as it did not want to continue subsidizing crude for the public. The majority stake of the company was bought by Repsol, a Spanish company with the minority stake remaining with the Argentinian government. Now with crude prices soaring and their economy in the doldrums, Argentina wants the company back. So what does it do ? It passes a bill which basically says, we own YPF. The problem is, Repsol was responsible for the great YPF growth in recent years and had invested a lot in the company. It gets nothing of that investment back. That is why an epic, national-economy-crunching legal battle is in the offing.

Maybe they should just play a football match to see who gets to keep the company. At the very least, we'll get to see some excellent ball play!

WTI Crude falls below 100 USD / Barrel

The end is near, It's time to despair, Crude oil is becoming cheaper, And it isn't fair.

While most of the world is complaining about rising oil prices, it is weird to find someone complaining about falling oil prices, but here I am, an out - of - work petroleum engineer. True, I'm still completing my bachelor's degree, but we can poke logic shaped holes in my arguments later.

When crude prices fall, oil companies make less profit and when they make less profit, they hire less students to work for them (see, it makes sense now, doesn't it!). There are three main reasons for the falling of crude prices right now:-

1. Spain files bankruptcy. They may have won the world cup (football that is for all my countrymen scratching their heads), but they have no money left to celebrate their triumph. Oh well, should have just let Germany have it after all.

2. The New French President. Ok, this one I don't understand. France is getting a new president, not only because of their rule of only 2 consecutive terms, but also because everyone becoming fed up of Mr. Sarkozy's flamboyant expenditure. With the new French president likely to be Mr. Francois Hollande, it is uncertain what policies he will follow. Even though he is part of the socialist party, he is opposed to the current trend of austerity gripping Europe. The uncertainty coupled with his opposition to the sound principle of austerity in the face of bankruptcy is probably the reason why no one wants to bank on French petroleum further devaluing brent crude.

3. U.S Job Scenario. The U.S rate of job creation has been far short as compared to predictions leading to destabilizing their economy. Being an oil economy, it is draining the value of American crude (WTI and NYMEX being affected here).

As crude oil invariably varies from one well to another, some standards have been set up in order to facilitate crude oil trading in mercantile exchanges.

Brent Crude -> European standard derived from the North Sea. Light crude, not too sour.
WTI -> 'West Texas Intermediate'. Average of many sampled wells of Texas. Very light, not at all sour.
NYMEX -> New York MErcantile EXchange. A synthetic standard created for trading (as the name makes it obviously clear) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Very light, not at all sour.

There are many other standards besides. For example, OPEC countries have their own for internal trade, but as a whole when it comes to international deals, these three are the ones most commonly referred to.

I do believe, it is time

Yes, I do believe it is time, time to return and post once more!

Now that we've done away with the overly - dramatic intro, let's get down to it. No, I have not been able to find a way to compress the video enough to display here. So, let's just all assume it was a nice short video full of lightning and lightsabers.

That being said, let me tell you that successfully submitting a B.Tech. project dissertation relieves more pressure from a person than a relief well does to an unruly formation.

This short post is just to shake off the cobwebs really. I'll start posting more regularly in the coming days.