I think most of us have been following what is going on in Egypt and what effect that will have on oil prices and CLL. I mentioned in my last not too frequent post that what I had read and saw in December while in the Dhahran and Jubail area of Saudi Arabia that my interpretation was that a minimum of $90 oil was here. It has mostly been in that area although there were further reports since the rioting that Saudis oil minister is calling for $80 oil. My business is with oil, petrochemical and government Interior ministries, I won’t get into more detail but this morning received an e-mail from a government ministry stating that they had just been told that they cannot come to Canada next week to sign a contract. These are very senior people and if it is happening to them it tells me that there is concern in the area as to the potential roll out of this citizen protest movement. Business wise this has a fairly significant financial adverse implication but on a personal investment side, has potential positive side as an effect on several O&G stocks I am in.

Now to the other thought: I was surprised that the January 24th Globe & Mail story headlined CN,CP eye shipping oil to West Coast did not get onto this bulletin board. Particularly because Cameron Todd Senior VP Operations, Refining and Marketing with Connacher Oil stated that “its a way of getting around current problems.” In my words it is probably an easier first step to get Alberta oil to Asia and would follow a similar pattern of Russian oil to China by rail and once that was established it was followed by a pipeline.

Just a couple of thoughts.