The oil information cartel is (finally) broken

Now remember, this is a Wall Street Journal writer with access to an incredible network of contacts and research. This was not a casual retail investor sitting at home with pedestrian internet search skills and no industry contacts. You would expect that finding the current price for Africa's main brand of crude for a Wall Street Journal writer would be a simple internet search or phone call away.

You would be wrong.

The Wall Street Journal writer not only couldn't find the current price for Bonny Light but the best he could do was get a price from six months ago!

We were passing information around faster with the Pony Express 150 years ago.

The trouble that the Wall Street Journal writer was having surprised Stafford, who then realized that he too couldn't get access to the current price of Bonny Light.

As the founder of the very popular website OilPrice.com, not being able to find a price for a globally important type of crude did not sit well with him.

So he put his head down and got to work.

The internet has made information available to everyone…..with ease.

Nowhere is that more true than in the investment world. I can tap into any SEC filing of any company within seconds. It wasn't that long ago that I would have had to request that information by telephone and wait to receive it by mail.

The internet has sent the encyclopedia the way of the dodo bird, ruined many a local newspaper and made the world a much smaller place.

It has also levelled the playing field in many cases, especially when it comes to investing.

When it comes to obtaining global oil price information however the internet has done nothing. We are still completely in the dark.