Iran is in the drivers seat.....they now are in defacto control of Iraq, since without them the suni ISIS would be beheading them Shiite Iraqis by the thousands. Thus we see the Iranians selling as much oil as they can.....knowing that every penny the cost of gas goes down, hurts their arch enemy the Saudis.
My question is where are the Chinese going to get oil from when the Persian Gulf gets closed down? Because the Saudis need to stop this oil slide, they don’t have more staying power than the strong American Dollar nowadays. Saudis close the Persian Gulf through some ISIS proxy action and what will the Chinese do?
Chinese Navy Practicing in the Indian Ocean by chance?
It’s likely not enough for their needs, but don’t the Chicoms have dibs on most of the non-stolen oil coming from equatorial Africa?
And Iran may or may not in quite as good shape as you imply (I don’t know) They have almost zero refining capacity, do they not?
The odd thing about Venezuela is their very heavy sour crude can only be refined in certain US refineries and possibly some refineries they have on Curacao. Without US refining,. their crap is worthless.
Lots of moving parts in this. I *do* think that the drop in oil prices is quite remarkable and definitely one of the top geopolitical stories of 2014 outside of ISIS. And Ukraine. And Crimea. Oh well, never mind!