2. In 2000 the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was founded
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, Total,
Shell, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale
It consists of
3. The ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace
Which operates outside of the US and is
free from the constraints of US laws
4. The futures and commodities
it trades include:
Cocoa
Coffee ‘C’
Cotton
Sugar No. 11
Coal
Conola
Emissions
...and of course
OIL
5. Over this year the price
of oil has almost doubled
Jan 09
40
May
50
60
70
80
6. Is it because demand is too great for supply?
According to the International Energy
Agency, worldwide demand is down 2.6
million barrels a day from last year
NO
7. With Saudi production from the Khursaniyah and
Khurais oil fields set to increase its output...
...and the Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of
Mexico to start production soon
Both of these will contribute another 1.2 million barrels
of oil per day to the world market by next year
8. THERE WOULD BE AN EXCESS
OF OIL ON THE MARKET
so why the high price?
as a result
9. The ICE conducts what is know as
“ROUND-TRIP” trading of energy
These trades occur when one firm sells energy to another
and then the second firm simultaneously sells the same
amount of energy back to the first company at exactly the
same price
but these transactions send a price
signal to the market and they artificially
boost revenue for the company
NO COMMODITY EVER CHANGES HANDS
10. DMS Energy, when investigated by Congress, admitted that
80% of its trades in 2001 were “ROUND-TRIP” trades.
Duke Energy disclosed that $1.1 billion worth of trades were
“ROUND-TRIP” since 1999. Roughly two-thirds of these were
done on the ICE
Under investigation, a lawyer for JPMorgan Chase admitted the
bank engineered a series of “ROUND-TRIP” trades with Enron
12. Every year over $1 Trillion is spent by US
consumers because of “ROUND-TRIP”
trading of oil
or
13% of the incomes of every man, woman
and child in the United States of America
or
13% more on food and fuel than before the
ICE was founded
13. and with 1.7 bn gallons of gas
used globally every single day
the artificial shortage and speculative demand created
by “ROUND-TRIP” trading means that companies could
charge you an extra one dollar per gallon of gas
that might not seem like much
14. but that one extra dollar would equate to...
$50 bn
a month
for
