Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras

I kept waiting to read the content. I brushed past an initial link. The real story is <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-27/the-oil-hub-where-traders-are-making-millions" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-27/the-oil-hub-...</a><p>Edit: Article on one page: <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/73558-the-oil-hub-where-traders-are-making-millions" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/73558-the-oil-h...</a>

This isn't a new thing. One thing I did at Enron was to try and figure out the construction status of power plants being built I read a lot of small local newspapers, city council minutes, looked for job listing, and called subcontractors etc. The fun side of trading involves getting a view of the market which is beyond newspaper articles and reports.

I'm not sure I get the anger directed at oil traders. Traders help implement the pricing function of the market. It's a fact that we're going to run out of oil. You can debate about peak oil, etc, but that's an argument about when we're going to run out of oil, not if. We hit peak reserves in 1980--ever since then the rate of new discovery has been less than the rate of extraction. When it sinks in that we're going to run out of oil, why wouldn't prices skyrocket? Why does anyone think the market will wait until oil production actually starts declining in order to price the eventual depletion into the price of oil?

Reading about how much resources these companies are pouring into espionage, it makes me wonder how much Cushing realy has to gain by keeping this information proprietary.<p>If someone is already getting that information out by flying a helicopter over my installation, I would be tempted to either a) arbitrage the situation by selling the information myself, or b) erect some tents over the tanks if it's really worth keeping it secret.

This little diddy jumped off the page at me:<p>"Goldman Sachs (GS) predicts that by 2017 the U.S. will be the world’s biggest oil producer."<p>How accurate is this statement? Is the reason the gasoline prices here are so high ($3.89 here this weekend) is because we don't have enough refineries to convert oil into gas?<p>*edited for grammar.

I really cannot see this as "spying". Its just collecting data that (in a perfect market?) should be available just for asking.

I believe GS also works with a firm to take satellite photos of a sample of Wal-mart parking lots across the country. Given that Wal-mart's performance is known to be a leading indicator of the economy, such information gives some valuable insight into lots of macroeconomic indicators.

While this lets those who are going far above and beyond to gather information, the solution is for the storage numbers to be published market-wide, to take away the edge a few have - with enough market pressure this could possibly happen.<p>Arbitrage is valid, as is doing your research, inferring what's going on with a company and then trading on your assumption.<p>Insiders are barred from influencing the market with their knowledge, but outsiders who infer what they think is going on, whether it's a sure thing or not, are perfectly fine.

This is brilliant - measuring power use via em sensors under power lines to get at oil production. I was just thinking last night what I could do with real-time accurate off grid data to simulate the various parts of the economy. Imagine if you knew everything and could simulate how it all relates together.