This pundit is immersed in oil data
When it comes to gasoline, Tom Kloza doesn’t feel your pain. He lives only about four miles from his office.
In fact, the price pressure at the pump is good for him. Crises are prime times for pundits, and no one knows that better than Kloza.
As chief analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, a business he helped found 28 years ago, Kloza has been in much demand lately as consumers grapple with gasoline bills that rival mortgage payments.
He’s been quoted from coast to coast by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, providing an often sardonic and occasionally controversial view of why energy prices are as high as they are and where they might be headed.
On some days, Kloza said, “I’m in more papers than Sudoku.”
Kloza, 54, is no stranger to television or radio either, although his appearances are limited by his reluctance to make the 70-mile schlep from his office in Wall, N.J., to the studios and soundstages in New York City.
Demand for his services wasn’t always this strong. When Kloza and a friend launched their petroleum-price tracking business in 1980, the oil markets were downright sleepy compared with the roller-coaster ‘70s. Then came oil price deregulation, followed by the introduction of crude oil and gasoline futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
“I wish I could say that we saw that coming,” Kloza said. “If oil hadn’t been decontrolled in 1981, it would’ve been a pretty slow go.”
Instead, the Oil Price Information Service has prospered, attracting thousands of clients looking for detailed wholesale and retail price information for gasoline and diesel. Owned by UCG, a Gaithersberg, Md.-based business publishing firm, OPIS, as it’s known, puts out newsletters, stages industry conferences and operates a website ( www.opisnet.com).
Updates on “rack rates” and clinics on converting service stations to biodiesel can be pretty dry, even in these energy-obsessed times. But Kloza, a New Jersey native without the Joisey accent, brings an irreverent flair to a complex and fraught subject.
It’s most noticeable in Kloza’s blog, Speaking of Oil (blogs.opisnet.com), where, to cite one recent example, proposals for a summertime gas-tax holiday were dissected under the heading “The CaCa Chronicles.”
Kloza came to energy punditry through the unlikely route of an English degree from tiny St. Francis University -- alma mater of former NBA stars Maurice Stokes and Norm Van Lier -- in Pennsylvania.
He’d studied journalism, but newspaper jobs were scarce in the tough economy of the mid-1970s, and Kloza instead landed a job at a trade publication called Oil Buyers’ Guide in Lakewood, N.J. The ability to type 120 words a minute was his primary qualification for the job, he said.
Within a few years, he and a friend decided to launch OPIS, and he’s been immersed in oil ever since.
Kloza likes to describe himself as an unbiased commentator, especially in comparison with figures such as T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman who regularly appears on CNBC to provide his views on energy prices.
“We are fiercely critical of the business,” Kloza contended. “I think we’ve gained a reputation in the industry for having a soul.”
Not everyone agrees. Consumer advocates complain that Kloza treads too lightly when critiquing clients that include oil companies and gasoline wholesalers.
“He’s not in a position where he can call a spade a spade, to tweak their nose and chastise them when they deserve it,” said Michael Shames, executive director of San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network.
“When he finds fault, he points fingers at government agencies or speculators but rarely points fingers at any of the major oil companies or the retailers,” Shames said.
Clearly, Kloza isn’t about to join the camp calling for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. But he’s not a big supporter of some of the themes the industry holds dear, such as opening environmentally sensitive areas of Alaska to exploration.
“That’s not to say we shouldn’t drill” at all, he said. “But it’s disingenuous to say that the answer to the energy crisis is to drill” in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
And although high oil prices have helped his clients who produce oil, many refinery owners and gasoline retailers are being squeezed by sky-high crude. Kloza, by the way, is convinced that petroleum prices are showing clear signs of hitting a top and are poised to decline soon. And even though turmoil in the oil markets has made him an in-demand pundit, Kloza seems ready to give up a little notoriety in return for cheaper fuel.
“I try to be very temperate and unbiased,” he said. “But at this point, I’m rooting for lower prices.”
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Begin text of infobox
Fuel-efficient
Name: Tom Kloza
Job: Chief oil analyst, Oil Price Information Service
Hometown: Passaic, N.J.
Personal: Married, with two teenage daughters. Lives in Manasquan, N.J.
Education: English degree from St. Francis University, Loretto, Pa.
Hobbies and interests: Golf (“I struggle to break 100”); saltwater fishing (“Rest assured, I don’t deplete any fisheries); anthropology (“Understanding crowd behavior can help you understand markets”); physics
Interesting idea: To encourage gasoline conservation, create close-in parking spaces (similar to handicap spots) that can be used only by hybrid vehicles
