... interests on their national debt that the net loss from selling less product would be unbearable in the short run, even if it may yield better returns in the long term. Some others would instead benefit, but deliberately chose not do so, most notably Saudi Arabia. Countries belonging to this group may be employing this strategy to gain a competitive advantage over a broader time horizon. If you are interested in an in-depth analysis I refer you to my previous article A Chess Match for the Control of Oil.
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Digressions aside, it is no mystery that current Venezuelan President has been very vocal about his criticism regarding United States' policies, not differently from his predecessor Hugo Chávez. It is also interesting that Venezuela's oil reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia's. It should be noticed as well that the current price crisis is definitely putting the Venezuelan economy to a tough test, with the risk of default looming large. If the sanctions were to escalate, a script which has already been ...
... which, as the author was told by Masoud Barzani, the president of this autonomous region, “stands on a sea of oil”
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. The Iraqi Kurds are exporting some of this oil, bypassing the central government in Baghdad.
Zaki Yamani, who headed Saudi Arabia’s oil ministry from 1962 to 1986, was warning of these prospects as much as ten years ago. He was one of the OPEC ministers who were taken hostage by the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal in Vienna in 1975.
During my interview with him, which took ...
... economy was followed by rising oil prices and it all crashed in 2007-2008 financial implosion with steep fall in prices for oil the next few years. As markets snail towards recovery, we see prices slowly increase.
The most traditional superpower in oil is undisputedly Saudi Arabia, with its physical market still dominating to a big extent. It also wields substantial power in OPEC, so it can use this cartel for its own means to a reasonable degree. We even have a very ambiguous 'fair price' policy set ...
