One of the most expensive in the World...

The final consumer price for petrol (gasoline) for the motorist in one of Europe’s oldest economies, Portugal continues to defy all reasonable logic as Prices continue to go up.
Speculation is the method most used by oil companies such as Galp, BP, Repsol and Cepsa, also involved are the government and some local media, a cartel of price fixing is used to place the final consumer price the same all over the country.
The litre of petrol is at its highest in the last 18 months, this year alone prices have increased 12%.
Regular 95 Octane in January 2010 was 1,295 Euros per litre, six months later the same litre has an inflated price of 1,495 Euros.
This means that the motorist needs more 5, 05 Euros to fill a 50 litre tank...
The last time prices were so inflated was in October 2008.when crude prices reached the $146 per barrel....
These ridiculous prices affect all sectors of the crippled economy as there is a direct influence in company budgets as well as the average motorist who has less and less money ..
According to World Watch decline in demand this year is expected to fall 16%...

U.S. Europe stocks

U.S. Europe stocks are poised to end the week with a dark cloud, asinvestors around the fear the economic outlook.
At 8 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), Nasdaq (COMP) and S&P500 (SPX) futures were all more than 1% lower.
Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance.
Global markets have been unsteady in recent weeks amid worries aboutEurope's debt crisis and the prospect of a double-dip recession become moreand more possible, one of the reasons is that OPEC cannot maintain crudeprices steady between $67 and $73 a barrel.
President Obama wants BP to set up a fund for damages from the worseningoil. Obama is due to meet company executives on Wednesday as this companybecomes more and more bogged down by its lack of capacity to solve the oilspill.
European shares dropped in morning trading. Germany's DAX fell 1.1%, theCAC 40 in France dropped 1.5% and Britain's FTSE 100 also 0.5%.
Asian markets also finished the session in negative territory. Japan'sbenchmark Nikkei index fell 1.8%, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 0.9%.The Shanghai Composite ended the session down 0.3%.
Dollar and commodities: Both the euro and British pound continued its dropjust over 1% on the dollar Monday, as European financial markets lookedlower. Meanwhile, the dollar was up about 0.2% against the Japanese yen.
U.S. light crude oil for July delivery fell $1.61 to $75.39 a barrel.

Possible take over...

Worldwatch predicts that some energy companies like EXXON, will launch a hostile offer for BP...
Shares in BP fell a further 6% on Wednesday amid fears that it will cut its dividend to help pay for the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Shares in the oil giant were trading at 384.6p by mid-afternoon. April's oil spill has sent shares in the company tumbling. Before the disaster, they were trading at 648p.

On Tuesday, BP shares lost 5% after US President Barack Obama said he would have fired chief executive Tony Hayward over remarks he made.
Mr Hayward made comments such as "I want my life back" and called the Gulf "a big ocean" in the wake of the disaster, which killed 11 people.
The sharp fall in BP's share price is bad news for UK pension funds, which
invest heavily in the firm.

Deep-Water Pause

A list of 33 deep-water Gulf of Mexico floating rigs affected by the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium as of May 26, according to an official with the Minerals Management Service:

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (5 rigs)
Eni SpA (3)
Marathon Oil Corp. (3)
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (3)
Statoil ASA (2)
Chevron Corp. (2)
Noble Corp. (2)
Devon Energy Corp. (2)
BP Plc (2)
BHP Billiton Ltd. (2)
Hess Corp. (1)
LLOG Exploration Co. (1)
Walter Energy Inc. (1)
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (1)
ATP Oil & Gas Corp. (1)
Newfield Exploration Co. (1)
Nexen Inc. (1)

$420 MILLION AND COUNTING

BP has incurred $420 million in costs so far from response, containment,relief well drilling and payments to Gulf Coast states, suggesting thefinal bill could be much higher than many analysts predicted.
BP is ill prepared to deal with such an incident.
BP shares fell 11 percent at 1430 GMT, lagging a 5.8 percent rise in theSTOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index. The stock dropped as low as 540.7p inLondon, its lowest since November. BP's American Depositary Receipts fell0.5 percent in New York.
The stock has lost around 17 percent since the rig blast, wiping around $33billion from BP's market value.
One economist predicts the spill's impact on the Gulf Coast will bewidespread, although jobs created for clean up efforts will spawn temporarynew jobs and demand for housing., but there will be more predictedlong-term casualties in terms of businesses lost, property depreciation andthe displacement of workers.

The crash !!!

Finally the crash week has ended!!! A week back no one imagined we would have a crash, something unforseen forced many investors into a crazy out ofcontrol state for some minutes, with stocks falling sharply with loosesaround the 30 to 60%. During some seconds the market was hit by massive orders to sell, that created massive panic, until now no one can explain exactly what happened. We will see how the markets react next week, what we need now is for the markets to settle down so that we may return to the gains we were having. It’s important to point out that the biggest world economies continue to grow at a faster pace than expected, however the Greek situation must be watched closely in order not to affect even more the Financial World. In all this negative atmosphere Portugal continues to have record profits for the energy companies such as Galp, Repsol, BP and Cepsa, even as crude prices fall below $80 per barril these companies once more increased final consumer prices at the pump, this way record profits are guaranted and revenue for the ever unpopular government continue. Portugal has one of the Worlds highest petrol prices for the consumer, the price paid by motorists for crude is not $80 per barril but rather a stagering $132 per barril !!! WorldWatch announced a 12% drop in petrol demand for Portugal second quarter 2010, if prices continue to increase for no apparent reason , than the demand will certainly drop further.
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The Chinese crash...

WorldWatch said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.
The Shanghai Composite Index has failed to regain its 2009 high while industrial commodities and shares of Australian resource exporters are acting “heavy”.

The opening of the World Expo in Shanghai last week is “not a particularly good omen, citing a property bust and depression that followed the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna.
The market is telling you that something is not quite right.

The Chinese economy is going to slow down regardless. It is more likely that we will even have a crash sometime in the next nine to 12 months.”

This crash will start with a possible 12% drop in fuel demand...