Oil and gold prices set to soar on the developing IRAN story

[cubical]

AGRO, CRESY, and POT are farm stocks I am looking to buy at the moment.

[ILUVRP]

exc website to see what is going on in the middle east , things you will not see on our news very much, it's the Debka files.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...SPbbSo7uLfSgvA

[ryanmkeisling]

That was a great little piece with Lew ROCKWELL. One of the main reasons I started farming, because food is priceless.

[swissaustrian]

Rome meeting analyses Iran oil embargo
Dec 20 (Reuters) - Diplomats from a so-called "group of like-minded nations" met in Rome on Tuesday to discuss further sanctions against Iran, diplomatic sources said.
The closed-door meeting is taking place under the auspices of the Italian foreign ministry and participants considered it a "technical meeting," an Italian diplomatic source said.
Diplomats said it would consider the arguments around a possible EU oil embargo against Iran. A decision may be made when EU foreign ministers next meet in January.No decisions are expected to emerge from Tuesday's meeting.
Participants are countries that have imposed bilateral sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program that go beyond U.N. Security Council sanctions.
The group includes the United States, the European Union and several European nations, Australia, Japan, South Korea and other countries but it was not clear if all of them were represented. The United States is attending.
The small informal group has been meeting for two years and its goal is to share information and discuss the next steps in the sanctions process.
The United States has long banned Iranian crude imports and last week Congress voted through restrictions on dealing with the Iranian central bank. The White House must decide whether or not to grant waivers to major Iranian oil importers like China, India and South Korea that need to deal with the bank to pay for Iran's crude.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7NK3BX20111220

[swissaustrian]

IEA: Iran Oil Capacity Seen Below 3M B/D By 2016 Due To Sanctions
LONDON (Dow Jones)--Iran's oil production capacity is forecast to decline by 890,000 barrels a day to just under 3 million barrels a day by 2016 due to tighter U.S. and European Union oil sanctions targeting the country's upstream oil and gas sector, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.
A separate mooted E.U. ban on Iranian oil imports would leave Mediterranean refiners confronting higher prices for replacement crude from producers such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Russia, the IEA said.
However, Saudi Arabia's spare oil capacity may not be a precise match for the significant volumes of Iranian heavy crude involved, the IEA said in its monthly oil market report.
Mediterranean refiners are believed to have already approached Saudi Aramco to enquire about extra cargoes of Arab Light, the closest quality match for Iranian Heavy, although much of the current Saudi spare capacity may instead be held in the form of less suitable Arab Medium or Arab Heavy, the report added.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-...13-702460.html

[swissaustrian]

Rickards sees war with Iran, big price impact on oil and gold
With investors concerned about the recent plunge in gold and silver and questions about what is going to happen with Iran and the Straits of Hormuz, today King World News interviewed KWN resident expert Jim Rickards. Rickards has gained international recognition for his deadly accurate predictions regarding moves by central planners. Rickards let KWN know that the US is headed to war with Iran: “Yeah, it’s very serious, Eric, actually grave. The big thing to get right in this case is that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, period. That’s just not going to happen. Now we know they (Iran & its allies) are pushing towards it and so there is going to be a train wreck.”
“The Obama administration has pursued diplomacy very vigorously. My view is it has failed. (The other possibility) would be a regime change. I say the war has already begun. There’s a lot of sabotage, there have been assassinations, strange things blowing up, rebellion. So there is enormous pressure being put on the Iranian regime from many directions. All of this is designed to destabilize the regime.But I think the regime is too entrenched, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp are to ruthless. They actually buy cranes, they hang people not from scaffolds, but from cranes, and they are buying more cranes because they are hanging more people. They’ll do whatever it takes, so I don’t see regime change.
What’s left? Well, what’s left is war and that is, unfortunately, where I see this heading. There is a lot of maneuvering going on already. The Iranians have a submarine fleet that’s kind of interesting because they run on battery power, so they are extremely quiet and hard to detect. They could take out one or two US vessels.They also practice these swarm techniques. They have these speed boats, like in Miami Vice, that type of boat that can go 50, 60 knots. (They are) much faster than any naval vessel. They load them up with explosives, they put suicide crews on them....
“If you send out one or two, you (the US) would swat them like flies. But if you send out fifty of them, even with these kind of laser guided gatling guns they have on some of the vessels, you can’t take all of them out. So the chance that one of them sinks one of our vessels is not insignificant.
They (Iran) could close the Straits of Hormuz. The (US) Navy would come in and clear it, but that’s not like moving traffic cones on a highway construction site. That would probably take weeks because there are mines and minesweeping is a very tedious and dangerous thing that takes a long period of time.
So it could get much messier, much uglier and much more deadly than I think a lot of people realize. Of course we all know what would happen to the price of oil. It would be up at $200 a barrel of higher. So, let’s hope it (war) doesn’t happen, but that’s one we could see happening in 2012, maybe even by the summer.”
When asked about the call, from Egon von Greyerz, for gold to move into the $3,000 to $5,000 range in 2012, Rickards responded, “Well, it’s certainly possible, I would not rule it out. I definitely see it in that range, so I agree completely with Egon that’s where it is heading.
Timing is always tricky. I have the direction and the magnitude right, but I see it as 2013, then going into 2014, I can definitely see it (gold) getting to that level. 2012 might be a stretch, but it could happen. Look, I would absolutely not rule it out, but it’s probably more in the next two years, rather than in the next year.”

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldne..._to_Spike.html

[Zippyjuan]

Rickard's "Deadly accurate predictions"? Like when he said in 2009 that gold would go to $10,000 an ounce (gold was $1140 at the time)?
https://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/76

Jim Rickards' Gold Price Prediction Tops $10,000

A year ago he revised that down to $4,000 to $11,000.
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News...edictions.aspx

These 6 analysts see gold price going parabolic to +$10,000:

1. Mike Maloney, $15,000
2. Ben Davies, $10,000-$15,000
3. Howard Katz, $14,000
4. Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, $7,000-$14,000
5. Jim Rickards, $4,000-$11,000
6. Roland Watson, $10,800

[swissaustrian]

Rickard's "Deadly accurate predictions"? Like when he said in 2009 that gold would go to $10,000 an ounce (gold was $1140 at the time)?
https://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/76


A year ago he revised that down to $4,000 to $11,000.
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News...edictions.aspx

Zippy, I´ve followed your first link and I´ve taken the time to read the entire article. I don´t see a difference between the first and the second statement. The headline doesn´t cite Rickards correctly. The text itself says:

Yesterday, Jim Rickards, director of market intelligence for McLean, Virginia-based consulting firm Omnis, was allowed onto CNBC again to make gold-friendly comments. The first time he was on CNBC back in September, he said When you own gold, you're fighting every central bank in the world. This time he said that gold should easily reach $2,000/ounce next year... and if gold should start being considered money again, it would have to rise to between $4,000 and $11,000 to support the big increase in the world's money supply. This GATA dispatch contains his original September CNBC interview... along with the new one. Both are absolutely worth watching... and you can hear a pin drop in the studio when he's talking about gold and where the price is going... and the link is here.

[swissaustrian]

Oil is up big time today on USD weakness and intensifying harsh rhetoric from both the Iranians and the US.
WTI is up 4 % at $ 103
Brent is up 4.6% at $ 112
Gold is also rebounding from it´s dip in late 2011: + 2.1 % at $ 1604

Here is what the always behind the curve mainstream media has to say about this today:

Iran Oil Tension Boosts Prices: The New Libya?
Oil prices surged nearly $4 per barrel on Tuesday morning on concerns about supply disruption ensuing from a possible confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. Front month WTI crude prices reached a intraday high of nearly $103 a barrel. Technically, February WTI crude futures need to breakout past the most recent high of $103.37 for a drive to $104 and higher.
Brent crude oil prices remain in an upswing as well, hitting a session high of $111.58 per barrel, and a close above $109.59 signals an emerging bull run advance, according to technicians. For Brent crude, the next key level to watch is $112.70, the 200-day moving average.
Traders say Iran is the new Libya. Just as civil war in Libya caused crude oil prices to spike to near $115 a barrel in 2011, escalating tensions between the Iran and the West could cause oil prices to reach those levels again early this year. Iran is the world's fourth largest oil producer, with production at 4.245 million barrels daily in 2010, according to the 2011 BP Statistical Review.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iran's army chief warned the U.S. Navy not to return an aircraft carrier back to the Persian Gulf after it was removed due to Iran's naval exercises in the area. Iran's threat comes after it test fired missiles in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend and the U.S. formalized extending sanctions on any entity dealing with the Iranian Central Bank. The euro-zone nations should decide by the end of the month whether to place an embargo on Iranian oil imports.
"Some of the rhetoric can at times be part of a PR show but it can quickly spin out of control," said Petromatrix energy analyst Olivier Jakob. "Iran asking a departing U.S. aircraft carrier not to return is almost forcing the US Navy to send it back to the Persian Gulf."
Iran has said it could shut the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway that the EIA calls "the world's most important oil chokepoint due to its daily oil flow of almost 17 million barrels in 2011."
Iran's currency is already feeling the pinch of a possible oil ban — with the rial falling 40 percent vs. the dollar in the past month.
"In this environment of increasing tensions and rhetoric, global asset managers are unlikely to give up their long exposure to oil ... at least until we can have a clearer idea as to what the Eurozone decides on an Iranian import ban and the Iranian reaction to the Eurozone decision," Jakob said.
He recommended buying the very back of the curve in Brent crude oil, buying December 2016 Brent at $90 in the current Iranian geopolitical environment.
Some traders said they're hedging Iranian risk to oil prices by buying "out of the money" calls. Call options from $110 to $130 have been trading, said Paramount Options president Ray Carbone, on concerns about Iran as well as possible strikes in Nigeria.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45857310

[swissaustrian]

Crude Surges On News Europe Agrees To Ban Iran Oil Imports
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/crude-...an-oil-imports

IDIOTS, China is gonna buy it all. European consumers are going to pay more at the pump.