The most interesting news story today.

[glatt]

I figured I would start this thread for stuff that doesn't belong in weird news and also isn't quite big enough to deserve a thread of its own.

Today, I nominate this story in today's paper about China's strategic oil reserves.

My TL/DR summary is that China claims its oil reserves are at a certain level. Some other independent dudes took a look at commercially available satellite imagery. They counted oil tanks in China and measured the width of a crescent shaped shadow cast onto the roof of each tank by the tank's wall. This tells them how much the floating roof is sunk, and therefor how full the tank is. Then they calculate it all up and came up with a very big number. China claims 287 million barrels of reserves, and these guys came up with 600 million barrels of reserves. China says it is aiming for a reserve that would equal 100 days of imports, but is only at 36 days currently. This independent estimate puts them at around 70 days. The US has a 150 day reserve.

What does all this mean to you? Well, the price of oil is fairly low right now but it is higher than it should be because China is working actively on building up its reserves and will continue to do that for some time. They are creating an artificial demand. Once they stop buying all that excess oil, the price of oil will plummet. I leave to the reader's imagination what that will mean. Low gas prices, collapsing local economies in oil fields, deflation, who knows? I don't. But I think it's interesting.

[xoxoxoBruce]

When China takes over the whole South China Sea area they'll have plenty.

[Clodfobble]

But it's the logical thing to do, right? Buy more when the price is low? If they say they have 36 but want 100, then they want three times what they have, meaning 210ish in real life. Surely that will continue to take them awhile. OPEC's goal is to bankrupt Venezuela with this price war, is my understanding. Will that happen before the Chinese have their fill and stop buying extra?

[glatt]

The bottom of the article adds that experts estimate that China is importing 0.6 to 1.2 million barrels a day more than what they need. So that's a year or two depending on China's actual goal.

[classicman]

From the "While you weren't paying attention" or the "While you were being distracted" files.
Interesting stuff. Not sure how this will impact things here, but it will certainly decrease a lot
of revenues across the board and I'd imagine the money needed to fund environmentally-friendly
innovative alternatives.

[sexobon]

Start checking your pennies Clod:

DETROIT — Stopping to pick up a stray penny off the ground may not seem worth the effort, yet one bank is trying to change that mindset by placing 100 fake pennies across the country worth $1,000 apiece.

Ally Bank says it is hoping to encourage Americans to look for opportunities to save through its "Lucky Penny" promotion, which launched this week. The lucky pennies carry a copper color like real pennies, but feature the Detroit-based bank's logo instead of Abraham Lincoln's head. The flip side of the coin lists its value at 100,000 cents.

The pennies have been placed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Miami, Denver, Detroit, San Diego, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas.

The coins can be redeemed online until the end of the year.

[lumberjim]

Lucky you. I like it