From Breitbart today:
IMF PREDICTS SAUDI ARABIA BANKRUPT BY 2020
The IMF just confirmed Breitbart News’ October 5 warning that Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves are in free-fall, with a new estimate that the world’s richest kingdom may be bankrupt by 2020.It goes on in that vein for a bit, even quoting Goldman Sachs projecting oil production out fifteen years. In the Middle East. Fer reelz. Anyway, back at the ranch we have reports out of the Vienna meeting.
Each October, the International Monetary Exchange issues its World Economic and Financial Regional Surveys. For the first time since the 1960s, the region set to suffer the worst financial agony over the next five years is the Middle East. Ground Zero for that pain is Saudi Arabia.
From Reuters:
Venezuela's Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino presented his country's proposals for measures to bolster prices, such as an OPEC and non-OPEC summit and said the market equilibrium price for crude was around $88 a barrel.
Non-OPEC producers have refused to work with OPEC in cutting supply to reduce a surplus that has sent oil prices below $50 a barrel, from $115 in June 2014. OPEC has refused to cut supply alone and many members have raised output.Oopsie.
From TeleSur:
OPEC, Non-OPEC Oil Producers Agree to Work on Stabilizing Prices
Well, no not really, and TeleSur is out of Caracas. But there is this:
Many other experts believe the United States has coerced its allies in the Middle East – especially OPEC's largest producer of oil, Saudi Arabia – to put a downward pressure on the price of oil to directly affect countries that are not aligned with their policies, such as Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Bolivia and Brazil, while replenishing their own reserves at rock bottom prices.Conspiracy theories about the U.S. still sell, probably because we open ourselves up for it. But according to the next article above-named victim Russia has also told Caracas to pound sand.
From the WSJ:
OPEC Hosts Meeting With Oil Officials From Non-Member States
“We are concerned about the depletion of reservoirs and about the decline of production,” said Venezuela Oil Minister Eulogio del Pinoat a news conference in the Austrian capital. “We are talking here about an equilibrium price to sustain the production.”
But the idea of cutting production to lift prices wasn’t discussed at the meeting of OPEC staff and technical experts from five non-OPEC producers, officials said, though countries like Venezuela have called for Russia to slash output. Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, and the Persian Gulf countries that rule OPEC have said they aren’t interested in cutting output.
So Minister del Pinoat is worried about the "decline of production" while he lobbies for a reduction in production from other member states to prop up prices. This tells you all you need to know about left wing logic. Well, what they think of your comprehension anyway, because the production decline he's worried about is Venezuela's own as they have screwed over their own infrastructure so badly they can't produce more. Oopsie.
So there we have it pretty much exactly where I left it the other day. Saudi Arabia feels it can stand the heat. It doesn't need the IMF for anything and doesn't care about its predictions. But the IMF's raison d'etra are the basket cases like Venezuela so giving them hope that the Saudis will eventually come around whilst giving them an excuse for another round of "help" makes sense here.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor Russia are going to budge here until they meet their objectives, whatever they may be, and with the U.S. having the prospect of being a net exporter in the not so distant future (under a Republican administration) OPEC's days seem to be numbered. We can only hope.
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