Those planners and investors who may have an interest, either as a user or perhaps investor in energy concerns are to look past Libya (2% of global production).
The Libyan conflict is priced in, likely at 103, WTI. Yet we have 120 as the top side.
It is foolish to be constructive on oil prices over the intermediate term.
Look no further than Bahrain. A Sunni minority rules the country; the majority Shia population identifies with Iran, a Shia stronghold. Hint: A recent Iranian newspaper article claimed Bahrain was a province of Iran! From the Telegraph, “Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the ayatollahs have assumed a protective role over the world's Shia. They will not have taken kindly to the sight of 1,000 Saudi troops driving across the 15-mile causeway that links their country to Bahrain, in support of their fellow Sunni royalists.”
Thus the arrival of these troops highlights region-wide hostilities between non-Arab Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Arab states. More than just a few in US and UK security circles tag this as the major potential conflagration - a Saudi - Iranian conflict. Guess where crude would go then? The Saudis are pacifying their own people with handouts; that won’t work with the mullahs.
From Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for Interl Peace, “Whatever ensues, however, the Arab risings have revealed that Iran’s revolutionary ideology has not only been rendered bankrupt at home, but it has also lost the war of ideas among its neighbors.” This makes the mullahs all the more dangerous over the near term.
Thus, if freedom fighters within Iran (long abandoned by Obama) do not in some way, and pretty quickly, de-louse their country of these Muslim thugs, then a major conflagration awaits us.
Robert Craven
The Libyan conflict is priced in, likely at 103, WTI. Yet we have 120 as the top side.
It is foolish to be constructive on oil prices over the intermediate term.
Look no further than Bahrain. A Sunni minority rules the country; the majority Shia population identifies with Iran, a Shia stronghold. Hint: A recent Iranian newspaper article claimed Bahrain was a province of Iran! From the Telegraph, “Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the ayatollahs have assumed a protective role over the world's Shia. They will not have taken kindly to the sight of 1,000 Saudi troops driving across the 15-mile causeway that links their country to Bahrain, in support of their fellow Sunni royalists.”
Thus the arrival of these troops highlights region-wide hostilities between non-Arab Shi’ite Iran and Sunni Arab states. More than just a few in US and UK security circles tag this as the major potential conflagration - a Saudi - Iranian conflict. Guess where crude would go then? The Saudis are pacifying their own people with handouts; that won’t work with the mullahs.
From Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for Interl Peace, “Whatever ensues, however, the Arab risings have revealed that Iran’s revolutionary ideology has not only been rendered bankrupt at home, but it has also lost the war of ideas among its neighbors.” This makes the mullahs all the more dangerous over the near term.
Thus, if freedom fighters within Iran (long abandoned by Obama) do not in some way, and pretty quickly, de-louse their country of these Muslim thugs, then a major conflagration awaits us.
Robert Craven
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