One is compelled to pull out that old chestnut, "There he goes again." The face of Saudi oil, and de facto senior voice of the OPEC cartel, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi entertained us to one of his seminal dissertations, expounding on Saudi Arabia's concerns for the well being of all mankind.
Stating the case clearly, that Saudi Arabia "... remains the world's largest producer and the country with the largest proven reserves, so it has a responsibility to do what it can to mitigate prices." No argument here.
Yet that bit of wisdom is prefaced by the oldest of canards, "Needless to say Saudi Arabia does not control the price: it sells its crude according to international prices." A truly bizarre declaration coming from the leading protagonist of the cartel, OPEC, whose primary function is to limit the supply of oil to world markets to control, and within the limits of the world's tolerance, to maximize the price of crude oil in the market place. Clearly their efforts have been so successful that the limits of tolerance have now been reached and letting off a little steam has become part of the ritual.
The ritual is encapsulated in the mantra repeated in Mr. Ali Naimi's pronouncement: "The bottom line is that Saudi Arabia would like to see a lower price . It would like to see a fair and reasonable price, that will not hurt the economic recovery, especially in emerging and developing countries...". A statement that automatically elicits our well inculcated and programmed hosannas whenever such mumblings come out of Riyadh.
The trouble is we have heard this babble before and now again. In December of 2008, with oil prices teetering below $40 a barrel and gasoline prices accordingly restrained, our now benevolent Saudi Oil Minister Al Naimi would pontificate, after King Abdullah himself had ventured that $75/bbl was a fair and reasonable price, enlightening us, "You must understand that the purpose of the $75 price is for a much more noble cause. You need every producer to produce, and marginal producers cannot produce at $40 a barrel." This coming from a producer whose "all inclusive" production costs veer toward "$1.50/bbl" or possibly less according to a pronouncement made by none other than Mr. Ali Naimi at the Houston Oil Forum in November 1999.
Well, several months after the December 2008 statement giving us the parameters of oil price 'nobility' the price touched and quickly breached Mr. Al Naimi's $75/bbl. As it went shooting on to $100/bbl and well beyond with barely a word of discomfiture coming from OPEC's or the Saudi Oil Ministry's headquarters.
As the price veered to $100 and higher the International Energy Agency had the presumption to criticize OPEC for holding back production only to be roundly reprimanded by OPEC's the Secretary General El-Badri blaming high prices on speculation and "technical means", whatever that means.
Speaking of speculation -- or worse, manipulation -- and given the lack of transparency in the trading of oil futures in the world's commodity markets, it would be interesting to hear from Mr. Ali Naimi whether the Saudi Oil Ministry, Aramco, the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund or whatever Saudi or OPEC designees are currently holding oil futures contracts and to what purpose. Certainly not to lower the price of oil?
Anyway, thank you Mr. Ali Naimi. Your sincerity and good deeds are appreciated.
Follow Raymond J. Learsy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/raymondLearsy
I am not entirely certain, but I believe that it is a BIG LIE which BIG OIL has told to the world for many decades, that Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves on the planet. I have read in several sources that IRAQ has more oil, possibly as much as two to four times as much as the Saudis!! Please refer to excellent and thoroughly researched and entertaingly written book:... "Armed Madhouse", by superb investigative reporter Greg Palast. In one section of this book, Palast explains the REAL REASON for the 2003 invasion of IRAQ by the U.S., Great Britain, and the "Coalition"...(read GULLIBLE??) armed forces.... It was mostly ( and this is very ugly, folks, in it's psychopathic ruthlessness...brace yourselves)... TO CONTROL IRAQ'S OIL so as to NOT PUMP IT OUT very fast,( as BIG OIL has been doing since at least the 1940's)...Because there is so much oil there ( of high quality and very close to the surface) that developing it rapidly and pumping it out quickly would lead to a world oversupply short term; thus causing world oil prices to COLLAPSE!!
Anyway, I have read the book several times ;and while there is almost always many causes involved in nearly every complicated human undertaking...(morbid humor intended!); I believe that Greg Palast has hit the nail on the head with his thorough analysis of the IRAQ invasion.
Thanks for Listening
Peace and Love
Loudmouth Karaoke Brad
I wonder about the numbers. Adding up military costs associated with protecting the oil pipeline (including lifetime medical veteran care, etc), medical costs associated with a hydrocarbon economy, tax breaks and subsidies for big oil... gotta be a huge number. And then, one can't forget the billions upon billions poured into the nuclear industry, however much that adds up to.
Point being, if the same amount had been spent on developing renewables, we would be so much better off. Unfortunately, we are governed by people who are motivated by short term gains and personal greed. Over 30 years ago, President Carter famously declared the energy crisis to be the moral equivalent of war. That may or may not be true, but in terms of lives ruined and money wasted, it's a war we're still waging, and thanks to leaders without vision, one that we're losing.
........CORN ETHANOL.......to start with the scam we subsidize farmers to grow CORN...then we pay the refiners .51 for every gallon they mix this junk in our gasoline...the end result it produces MORE Pollution less mileage and power...
AND they just got an approval to raise the content to 15%....what a joke
the story > http://zfacts.com/node/243
We (Americans) should quit acting like spoiled children every time gasoline rises to $50 per tank and find alternatives. Sell your Pickup or SUV and become part of the solution. Or whine about gas prices and attack the administration for trying alternatives.
bad grammar won’t solve the oil crisis
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And we waste the oil they provide. Better borrow more form the Chinese. And so the world goes round. For now. But not for much longer.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp
now for the good and the bad...the USA has already LEASED most US PUBLIC lands to CANADA...the Oil is of the oil sands variety and has much sulpher. it is called heavy sour crude...and to date it can only be refined by the Saudi-Aramco-Shell refinery in Port Arthur, Texas..the USA has not built a new refinery in 31 years...the ones we now have are patched with bandaids and are constantly down for repairs.. and as an aside because someone will always say Canada does not have refineries...every day the US ships 20,000 barrels of OIL to the N.eastern US/Canada border for refining into gasoline. The USA also buys Gasoline from Portugal and Spain which is refined from Llbyan sweet crude.
I believe, burt am not 100% certain, that humanity has already discovered a solution to it's ever- increasing energy needs. I believe we just need to tell the big, conglomerate fossil fuel companies that they must CEASE and DESIST!...(probably within 5 years...sooner, if possible). We need to spend whatever it takes to convert to a SOLAR-POWERED energy economy using Hydrogen Fuel- Cell technology.
We FOR SURE know how to produce Hydrogen Fuel Cell driven vehicles. Well over 300 of them already are in use in the state of California. Photographs of them are on the internet; however, apparently the energy to produce the chemical reaction (Water is broken apart into Oxygen and Hydrogen) comes from methane gas, rather than the ideal source, which is SUNLIGHT!!
I feel very strongly that if we spent 5% of the several trillion dollars that we have spent on wars in IRAQ and Afghanistan, we would be able to research and develop this sustainable technology, and possibly save ourselves from SEVERE GLOBAL WARMING. Also, we would have oil for LUBRICATION and making PLASTICS ( actual best uses for us as a species who wants to continue surviving on our beautiful and mysterious planet)
My dad laughed when I gave the protagonist in my novel the mission of advocating for the nationalization of energy. I didn't do it just to have the guy tilting at windmills. I believe that oil and both consumer and investment banking will be nationalized in the near future. The tipping point will come when even the 1% discovers that it's not just a matter of ideology anymore. The rest of the world is nationalizing oil and finance. We can not compete on a global scale if we do not use the power of the federal government to counter the massive power of other governments. No matter how rich and powerful a few private individuals become, they can not compete with entire nations. The strategy of sending the military to take out foreign governments who dare to nationalize oil and other markets is not just immoral, it's an unsustainable strategy that doesn't work. It's more humane AND more efficient to stop spending massive amounts of borrowed money on being the world market police and just nationalize US markets that have to compete with the nationalized markets of other nations.
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Author of The Firewall Sedition, a novel in the tradition of the progressive writers of the 1930s. firewalleconomics.com
Finance has grown from 5% of our economy in 1980, to 45% now.
We already have nationalized energy given the level pro subsidies we give fossils and nukes.
Let's just shift all those breaks to green energy: rooftop solar, offshore wind, efficiency and waste bio fuels.
Let's tax fossil and nukes for their deadly pollution and dangers.
Let's shut down the worst of the nukes right now, and the rest as rapidly as possible.
ASAP phase out coal, fracking and petroleum.
But the fastest, best way to do that is feed in tariffs, pollution taxes and a regulated market.
Vote for the Kucinich, Warren, Grayson and CPC-Progressive folks in the primaries and the dems in the general.
Then end Bribery, publicly finance elections.
I would recommend that they should milk it while they can, until the world find a better alternative.
The relationship between America and Saudi is a putrid one - walking hand in hand with Brezhnev would not be that revolting.
Dependence on oil must end and alternative technologies must be propagated worldwide, perhaps even subsidized to accelerate it's implementation.
How many times, must the oil price rise,
Before it's forever abandon-ed
They answer my friend,
Is blowing in the wind.............
It imports a huge amount of crude oil, and exports a small amount of petroleum products.
All of the US's coal, oil and gas production is used internally.
They have not deviated from this course in thirty years. This is national interest being played out rationally. The rhetoric associated with selling their supposed policies to the world should, as Mr Leary implies, be taken with a seasoning of salt.
The Saudis may be criticized for their rhetoric, but we all know that is the way of the salesman, nothing more. With regard to maximizing national income for their people, they should be admired.
It is not their job to maximize production in order that that unproductive citizens of the United Sates can afford to drive to Walmart to buy more stuff imported with borrowed dollars.