No, I think if anything, the effects are being understated. BP has no really viable option for capping this leak, which is a mile down. Drilling a relief well is a very long shot that might take months to accomplish. Meanwhile, we are entering hurricane season. A big storm could conceivably push the oil around the tip of Florida into the Atlantic where the Gulf stream could pick it up. The claims process could go on for decades, just as happened with Exxon Valdez, except this has the potential to be much larger. That happened in a remote area of alaska. This threatens trilllions of dollars of beach front property, businesses, marine industries, even shipping into the Mississippi. ships that are contanimated by running through oil have to be cleaned before coming in. I would not be surprised if BP and Transocean do not survive this. We are looking at $150 bbl oil and $5 gasoline.
as I understand the main problem will be that offshore drilling will be frozen for a long time which will reduce oil supply significantly so yes we can see $150 oil very soon
Problem is it is not just CNBC mongering. It seems to be a big deal by all news pundits - http://www.socialnews.biz/tag/oil
It has big implications beyond the Gulf of Mexico and BP: "Calif. governor ends support for offshore drilling"
The question is how do we take advantage of this as traders? While charts for BP-RIG-HAL look rather painful, COP has been doing rather well - and somewhere someone has to profit from this. Higher gas/oil is likely in the near term, which will mean higher profits: my bets are on COP and USO (above 42).