Well, things are tough all over. I hear Iran can afford to loan them a little.
And Obola is laughing all the way to his bankers (Soros, etc.) ... His Saudi lords are getting some money (not a lot through) and the rest of the country has cheap gas so they will elect another denocrat, the enviro’s are mad - but dare not complain, and the red states are getting screwed ....
“Saudis ‘will not destroy the US shale industry’”
Because.... Obama beat them to it ?
B.S. title to a nonsense article that contradicts itself from paragraph to paragraph. Still, there are a few useful grains of information included.
First, while unsavory in other ways, the Saudis are NOT flooding the market with oil. Saudi production has been fairly stable, in their attempt to maintain market share. If anything, it has been the US flooding the market with oil, at least until prices fell so low that some US producers began to fall out.
The present dynamic is production increases from Iran and Iraq, in particular, creating or “pushing” the US slump. Assuming that the article is correct (a useful grain of information?) in pegging Iraq’s cost of production at $11 / barrel (and I would assume other area producers are in that neighborhood), this is clearly problematic for US producers. Iraq, for example, is desperate for cash, and with the Saudis and Iran at each other’s throat (no cooperation there), Iraq’s only option is to pump as fast as they can at $10-$20 per barrel profit. Other countries are in the same situation. Venezuela, comes to mind.
As a side note, one would think that “greenies” would hate Obama to no end, for enabling Iran’s contribution to cheap oil.
One other “useful grain” is the article’s statement that “It takes $10m and just 20 days to drill for shale.” I’d assume the cost and time to reopen most shuttered wells, outside of offshore platforms that have been moved, is no more, at worst. This all rather renders the idea that both domestic and overseas production capacity will crash due to “lack of investment”, causing shortages and high prices, quite unlikely, at least for any prolonged period of time. Barring a major Saudi - Iranian war, as output begins to fall in a few years, prices will begin to rise, and new wells (and shuttered old ones) will be reopened. Shale oil technology will be even cheaper, and more available, worldwide. Put another way, as long as there are “enough” recoverable deposits at $50-$60 per barrel, and no major wars come along, the price will not head north of there for long.
Government should subsidize the shale industry now. That’ll bankrupt OPEC and make SA a rotting cesspool once again.
Then once oil is so cheap nobody can compete nor care to compete, unsubsidize it and let the market correct itself. After all, the sheiks are doing this now. Why not do the same?
The Saudis with their huge reserves of cash, are probably trying to be hidden partners in the purchasing of these operations.
To all oil-producing countries that are leftist aholes: Bwaahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Embrace the suck.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one twisted propagandist, by the way. In regards to the Greek debt problems, he blamed Germany for refusing to shovel more money to Greece.
Funny, I haven’t seen an article on “peak Oil” for a while.