Surprise! Saudi Arabia is no longer wholly-owned gas station of the United States
It has been apparent to anyone paying attention that Saudi Arabia was and would be limiting its oil production. We got another reminder last week.
Saudi Arabia
The Saudi-Russian oil price war tag team: Are things what they seem?
I believe that the Saudis and the Russians are trying again to destroy the shale oil industry in the United States with their dance of uncertainty. As of this writing, the world has been told that the Saudis’ on-again, off-again fight with the Russians is off-again resulting in a new deal to cut production.
The troubled Saudi Aramco IPO: It’s what you can’t see that counts
It’s what you can’t see—the oil beneath the Arabian sands—that potential investors in Saudi Aramco’s on-again, off-again initial public offering (IPO) ought to focus on. The truth about the remaining oil resources beneath the Saudi desert continues to be a state secret.
Saudi retreat on oil IPO highlights dearth of reliable information on world oil reserves
The recent retreat of Saudi Arabia from its planned IPO is not only an important financial event. It’s an important informational event in that it highlights the opacity of the world’s oil producers. It should remind us that the numbers we accept from major governmental and international organizations regarding oil reserves worldwide are largely based on unverified sources, namely, the word and only the word of most of the world’s national oil companies.
Gearing Up for the Third Gulf War
With Donald Trump’s decision to shred the Iran nuclear agreement, announced last Tuesday, it’s time for the rest of us to start thinking about what a Third Gulf War would mean. The answer, based on the last 16 years of American experience in the Greater Middle East, is that it won’t be pretty.
Saudis and Trump: Gambling Bigly
We are, of course, discussing Saudi Arabia, which has been much in the news lately. This essay will review recent events centered therein and probe their significance. As we will see, the main actors in the drama are an ambitious young Saudi prince, the Trump administration (and its own ambitious young prince), Iran, and Israel (which has a hand in just about everything of significance that happens in the Middle East)—with Lebanon, Qatar, and Yemen as possible staging grounds for the unfolding of further action.
Saudi Arabia and the war on shale oil that never ended
Why are the Saudis content to allow oil prices to remain this low and possibly drift lower? I believe it’s because their war on shale never ended; they mean to destroy the long-term financial viability of oil from shale deposits–and that job won’t be finished until investors say, “Never again!”
Ready for more punishment: Investors load up on oil share offerings
Investors keep hoping that the Saudis don’t really know what they are doing. So far the Saudis appear to have the upper hand, and I’m guessing that those buying newly issued oil company shares these days are miscalculating once again.
Saudi Arabia’s Oil-Price War Is With Stupid Money
Saudi Arabia is not trying to crush U.S. shale plays. Its oil-price war is with the investment banks and the stupid money they directed to fund the plays. It is also with the zero-interest rate economic conditions that made this possible.
What is Saudi Arabia not telling us about its oil future?
It is popular these days to speculate about why Saudi Arabia cajoled its OPEC allies into maintaining oil production in the face of flagging world demand. Was the real reason for the decision to maintain production the desire to undermine rising U.S. tight oil production–which has now proven embarrassingly vulnerable to low prices after years of triumphalist talk from the industry about America’s "energy renaissance"?
Oil Price Slide – No Good Way Out
The world is in a dangerous place now. A large share of oil sellers need the revenue from oil sales.
Oil decline: Price makes the story
It’s likely that the Saudis are encouraging a fall in oil prices. In the face of what looks like declining demand, rather than cut production to maintain prices as they have done in the past, they’ve decided to maintain their market share worldwide by cutting prices.