ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I believe this is incorrect. It wasn't OPEC, it was Saudi Arabia who opened the taps. The official excuse was to drive out natural gas production in the US, but they are our friends and we asked them to help us contain Putin.I thought the global oil shortage was caused by myriad factors including OPECs refusal to slow production, the huge withdrawl of Fracking Natural gas from our own reserves. I'm not sure how many hundreds of billions of oil cash have been lost, and how close to the brink this has brought us, so I don't view any of this as a complete plan.
I can totally see how the US may have pushed private US industry into fracking. That totally makes sense and easily implemented. And puts the nuts to Putin. Totally. I can also see us whispering to Canada and achieving the same. Seems easy to get them to come along with this. Much of the rest is out of our control. And it spiraled far, far beyond any intended action. Our internal fracking system is limping along. Huge layoffs. This was not part of any plan.
The fracking boom was a technological and republican administration led event. It was well underway when Mr Obama entered office, and continued the policies with broad bipartisan support. This created the opportunity to fuck with Mr Putin's cash flow and our close ties with the House of Saud helped seal the deal.
Iran's readmission to the world's oil markets was a lucky accident, which will help keep oil prices down for the foreseeable future.
America's Strategic Oil Reserve is nearly full and the world's storage capacity is bursting at the seams to the point where VLCC bulk crude tankers are leasing for up to $100k a week just to use as floating oil storage. This is setting the stage for a major price crash in the oil business. We haven't seen the bottom yet. Shortage? The world is fucking drowning in it!