[TheDude]

Among other bits of budget cuts at the EIA amounting to $15.2 million, leaving $95.4 in the kitty. Because, as we all know, if there's one of bit of absolutely dispensable pork in those trillions of dollars the Fed spews out on a yearly basis, it's a pittance dedicated to monitoring the international energy situation. Read about here: There Goes the Data: Major Cuts at EIA Washington | Gregor.us

I'm phoning my reps - what BS, and quite suspicious, frankly.

[TheDude]

[dp]

[cipi604]

What to do with all of those stats if you have no money to buy oil?!

[eXpat]

Out of sight, out of mind

[Nefarious]

If you don't want to see yourself going over the cliff...put a blindfold on.

[Pops]

Good, this information should be only available to those who can pay to have it collected themselves.

[TheDude]

Good, this information should be only available to those who can pay to have it collected themselves.

You mean taxpayers? This is the EIA's mission, for Chrissakes. Energy Information Administration.

Some of the rest of the trimming almost makes me think someone has a quite dark sense of humor about this. "Curtail efforts to understand linkages between physical energy markets and financial trading," I mean, that sounds like something out of Orwell's Minitrue.

Luckily for monthly data we still have the IEA and JODI to go to - for now. It's been demonstrated that US pressure on the former led to their pie-in-the-sky forecasts of the last decade, and who knows but they too might suddenly abandon monitoring global stats. Gregor talks about this always being a weak link in analyzing energy.

Likely traders will raise a fuss about this - those guys love having another data point to freak out over. Will have to see if it's made the wires yet.

[crude_intentions]

Another inconvient data black out. Just like the Fed and M3

[Pops]

Good, this information should be only available to those who can pay to have it collected themselves.

You mean taxpayers? This is the EIA's mission, for Chrissakes. Energy Information Administration.

Dude, don't be so obtuse.
I was mocking the Party of Convenient Austerity.
Notice how I cleverly pointed out "those who can pay" as the real beneficiaries?

[TheDude]

Just fuming a bit more, I caught that you were being sardonic. Commentor at Gregor points out that this money could subsidize a small wind farm...lame article at MarketWatch recounting the basics is all I've picked up in the news. This will definitely be an article at TOD, and hopefully get some attention.

[DomusAlbion]

I'm good with this decision.

The European agency does a much better job of reporting world-wide oil production levels. I generally ignore what the EIA reports; there's too much corruption and politics afoot in all the US Administrations of the last 30 years.

[Pops]

It's been demonstrated that US pressure on the former led to their pie-in-the-sky forecasts of the last decade, and who knows but they too might suddenly abandon monitoring global stats.

Yeah but I've mentioned before the EIA estimates were always lower than IEA's - unless there is some explanation I'm not aware of... From Early Warning:




http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/04/i ... 07mbd.html

[Plantagenet]

budget cuts at the EIA amounting to $15.2 million, leaving $95.4 in the kitty....I'm phoning my reps - what BS, and quite suspicious, frankly.

I agree this is a really bad development. But its not a surprise.

Rule number one at any federal agency is that the most visible, useful, and important work the agency does gets cut first.

That way people notice and complain, and the budget cuts often get restored.

[seahorse3]

Just like when the Fed stopped publishing their M3 money supply figures, right as things were heating up.

[mos6507]

If you don't want to see yourself going over the cliff...put a blindfold on.

It's not like the EIA's stats were that accurate to begin with.

[TheDude]

Actually the EIA and other agencies are improbably precise. I always agreed with Jean Laherrère that venturing out into the land of decimal places with energy data was a bit silly. Also EIA dutifully report complete flat numbers for more than reserves, which is also unrealistic, and emblematic of producing nations just feeding them the same boilerplate month after month. But what else are you going to do? At least we could mull over the discrepancies - which tended to track each other, for whatever reason.

A few pieces showing up in the news, Kirsten Korosec for CBS's bNET, Michael Levi at the CFR. Gregor's was picked up by Business Insider. All are pointing out that we're saving a bright shiny nickel per American for this.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Actually the EIA and other agencies are improbably precise. I always agreed with Jean Laherrère that venturing out into the land of decimal places with energy data was a bit silly. Also EIA dutifully report complete flat numbers for more than reserves, which is also unrealistic, and emblematic of producing nations just feeding them the same boilerplate month after month.

It seems to me that I can't remember a reasonably accurate price forecast coming out of these folks, or the IEA, etc. anyway. Makes you wonder.

But here, on our own little site we have OF2, who gathers and tabulates and reports and prognosticates every sizable oil venture around! So the govt. can just quote him, give him free coupons for happy meals or the equivalent, and look at all the money we saved!

(Actually, OF2, I like the work you do and the commentary -- I just couldn't resist the kind of argument for the free market that the hard right would automatically make, whether it makes any sense or not. That's what I get for reading the WSJ editorials hoping to actually learn something something).

Is the budget balanced yet? Only 89 kazillion billion bucks to go!

[copious.abundance]

Yeah this is disappointing news. I suppose we'll have to construct a close proxy to "crude and condensate" production using IEA data.

Maybe the IEA will be nice and take up where the EIA left off.