Without even having to search the following is an article from Alexanders Oil & Gas's e-news which needs to be highlighted along with a quote from Zawya Weekly (a weekly middle east e-newsletter " What goes around, comes around‘ As always in the final editing of the content of the Update, there are a few issues that catch the attention more than others, and sometimes these issues are right-out shocking. One major issue can be found with the article: ‘The global oil scam: 50 times bigger than Madoff‘, which describes the going on of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). According to the author of the article,”the ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate ‘dark pool’ trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE and the ‘beauty’ of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price.” “In 2003 it was discovered that ICE was being used to facilitate "round-trip" trades."Round-trip" 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. No commodity ever changes hands. But when done on an exchange, these transactions send a price signal to the market and they artificially boost revenue for the company. This is nothing more than a massive fraud, pure and simple.” The amount of money involved in this massive fraud is quite massive as well and expected to be in the order of 2.5 trillion dollar, at least. For the names of the banks involved, you are advised to read the article in ‘Features’. One does need to ask oneself: how is this possible? Is it known with the European authorities that within the sovereignty of the EU, such an outlandish scam is going on, influencing the global markets, distorting relationships, driving up prices and basically stealing trillions of dollars from the people world-wide? But it does explain somewhat how it is possible that the oil-price has reached the current levels whilst there is a glut of 100-150 million barrels stored away or floating on the seas, waiting for the times demand is increasing again. When this is due to happen is clearly a matter of debate (or forged projections). And whilst this is now surfacing, yet another speculation-scandal, it comes to mind that at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid mid last year, I was personally witness that the CEO’s of ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP as well as several other majors, all feverishly denied that the excessive oil price at the time (it was about $147) was due to speculation. It was all a matter of ‘supply and demand’ they said. The question rises then: were they ignorant or just lying? And which one is worse? Then >>> Of course there is the upheaval that occurred around the publication of the World Energy Outlook 2009, in which a whistleblower brought in the open what was expected already for a long time: the expectation or projections for future supply and demand were way out of line, and substantiation was more than thin. Actually it became clear that due to political pressure, the figures were forged. Over the last years the IEA has very often needed to correct and re-correct itself, although by juggling language and statistics it didn’t look all too silly, but it is already clear for quite some time that ‘something is quite rotten in the country’. Maybe it should be considered that providing false expectations of supply, data upon which many countries rely for their policies, is not just fraud, it is very dangerous fraud, as it would have come to the surface anyway, just later and more sudden, not giving the countries the time necessary to adjust their policies to the inevitable truth: that oil-supply will be in decline! But we can only hope that with these kinds of revelations, the world starts to wake up to the reality of what it harbours as ‘friends and mentors’ within its partnerships, and starts to look for a bit more transparency, and above all, a bit more honesty in its relationships. Would you want to keep a friend that is lying and cheating and using your house to defraud on others? Well, it is time to ask the question, and maybe look to the future for possible alternatives. Stay clear, Alexander! and.... "“The issues in your article have as much to do with an immature and handcuffed media as they do with dishonest bankers. Investigative journalism cannot exist without free speech and the good journalists, like the good bankers, usually end up leaving out of sheer frustration ...” Mounther Al Sabbagh on Shawarma Capital"