Free Oil | Planet Finance (2/6)

Aug 5, 2023 | Planet Finance sets the world price for many commodities: for grain, for gold and also for oil. There is always demand for oil and the price is constantly changing. It is hard to imagine now, but at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we could not get rid of oil. The world's oil supply was floating at sea. The tankers, and their crews, had no choice but to wait for a better price. And then came a day when a barrel of oil was free! How can a market be so derailed?

In this six-part documentary series, Marije Meerman takes you to Planet Finance. Who live and work there? What language do they speak? What is the use of this planet, and what makes this financial world so attractive to so many people?


Part 1 here.

Oil Price Shock On The Way? | Inside Story

The war in Yemen - and sanctions being re-imposed on Iran - is worrying the oil market. Saudi Arabia has ordered its oil tankers to stop sailing through the Bab Al Mandeb Strait off the coast of Yemen after two others were attacked by Houthi rebels who are linked to Iran. Iranian commanders have warned they will order the closure of the gateway to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz - if the U.S. blocks its oil exports.

Tensions are rising because of the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions after Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Will regional tensions be further fueled? And what about the price of oil?

Presenter: Peter Dobbie | Guests: Dr Mamdouh Salameh - International Oil Economist; Bassima Alghussein, Chief Executive, Alghussein Global Strategies; Mostafa Khoshcheshm - Political Commentator

Newly Declassified Documents Confirm US-backed 1953 Coup in Iran Over Oil Contracts

Newly declassified State Department documents show oil contracts played a key role in the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran that led to the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. "What the documents show is actually the importance of oil in the coup," says Professor Ervand Abrahamian. "The conventional wisdom is, oh, it was all the Cold War scare, communism. But here you see, actually, very occasionally, when Eisenhower intervenes in a discussion, it’s about question of oil contracts and so on and how nationalization would disrupt the whole international framework and would be a threat to U.S. interests, oil interests, elsewhere."

Saudi Arabia Funds Terror But We Love Them (and Their Oil) Anyway

A new report says that Saudi Arabia contributes major funds to encourage extremism in the UK, but the British government is trying to cover it up. The US did the same when it was revealed that the Saudis played a big role in 9/11. Ring of Fire's Josh Gay tells you why.

Is Saudi Arabia on the Brink of Bankruptcy?

Up until now, oil has allowed the payment of all kinds of bills. Citizens have got used to a high level of subsidies and allowances, and not having to pay any taxes. But since the falling of the oil prices, everything has changed for Saudi Arabia. In 2015, the deficit reached 15% of the GDP with the situation continuing in 2016 and threatening to swallow up every penny saved during the “black gold” years in a very short period of time. 70% of the Saudi population is under 30 and they will require two million jobs over the next decade. In this video, we talk about the plan that Saudi Arabia is trying to follow to escape from this scenario.

Saudi Arabia's Gigantic Oil Problem, Explained in 2 Minutes

June 30 -- Saudi Arabia's vast oil wealth has transformed the lives of its citizens - but it needs to turn off the rampant spending if it wants to balance the books. This Bloomberg QuickTake video explores how the kingdom plans to navigate its post-oil future.

Sam Harris - Oil & Islam

‘ISIS Managed to Sell Oil to Turkey on Black Market At Less Than 50% of Global Prices’ – Iraqi MP

A member of the Iraqi Parliament, Dr Mowaffak al Rubaie, tells RT how ISIS manages to earn millions of dollars selling oil on the black market in Turkey and reveals that wounded terrorists are being treated in Turkish hospitals.

Inside Story: Oil and Gas: At What Price?

Regional power shifts and how they affect the supplies of gas and oil central to 21st Century life.

Trillions of Dollars Worth of Oil Found in Australian Outback
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Up to 233 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the Australian outback that could be worth trillions of dollars, in a find that could turn the region into a new Saudi Arabia.

The discovery in central Australia was reported by Linc Energy to the stock exchange and was based on two consultants reports, though it is not yet known how commercially viable it will be to access the oil.

The reports estimated the company's 16 million acres of land in the Arckaringa Basin in South Australia contain between 133 billion and 233 billion barrels of shale oil trapped in the region's rocks.

The find was likened to the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil projects in the US, which have resulted in massive outflows and have led to predictions that the US could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer as soon as this year.

Peter Bond, Linc Energy's chief executive, said the find could transform the world's oil industry but noted that it would cost about £200 million to enable production in the area. Shale oil is more costly to extract than conventional crude oil and involves the controversial process of fracking, in which water and chemicals are used to break up the rocks.

"If you took the 233 billion, well, you're talking Saudi Arabia numbers," Mr Bond told ABC News. » | Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney | Thursday, January 24, 2013

Iran Claims Significant Advance in Nuclear Programme
Iran has claimed a significant advance in its nuclear programme, installing new fuel rods in a research reactor and claiming to have developed a more advanced model of centrifuge.

Read the article here | David Blair | Wednesday, February 15, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Iran to stop oil exports to six EU countries causing prices to rise: Iran will stop exporting oil to six European Union countries including Greece, the state media has claimed. » | David Blair | Wednesday, February 15,

After U.S. Oil Snub, Canada Focuses on China
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada wants to expand economic ties with China, in the wake of the U.S. decision to block the Keystone oil pipeline project
Watch Reuters video here | Monday, February 06, 2012

Republicans Take On Obama over Oil Pipeline
Republican politicians in the United States are fighting President Barack Obama's decision to reject a controversial pipeline project. They are trying to strip the president of his authority to decide the fate of the Keystone oil pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada through the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans say Obama made the decision based on political considerations, and that the project would create thousands of jobs. Democrats, however, argue that a full environmental assessment must be carried out before the deal can be approved. Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett reports from Washington, DC, the US capital.

Uprising in Saudi Arabia? America Won’t Allow It

THE FIRST POST: Alexander Cockburn: There’ll be little talk in Washington of democracy in action if Shia protests catch hold

POSE a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as Shia protesters are said to to have done in Awamiya, according to reports this week from the country's oil-rich Eastern Province, and you're brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of long-term US policy in the Middle East.

The US consumes about 19 million barrels of oil every 24 hours, about half of them imported. At 25 per cent, Canada is the lead supplier. Second comes Saudi Arabia with 12 per cent. But supply of crude oil to the US is only half the story. Saudi Arabia controls OPEC's oil price and adjusts it carefully with US priorities in the front of their minds.

The traffic is not one-way. In the half-century after 1945, the United States sold the Saudis about $100 billion in military goods and services. A year ago the Obama administration announced the biggest weapons deal in US history – a $60 billion programme with Saudi Arabia to sell it military equipment across the next 20 to 30 years.

Under its terms, the United States will provide Saudi Arabia with 84 advanced F-15 fighter planes with electronics and weapons packages tailored to Saudi needs. An additional 70 F-15's already in Saudi hands will be upgraded to match the capabilities of the new planes.

Saudi Arabia will purchase a huge fleet of nearly 200 Apache, Blackhawk and other US military helicopters, along with a vast array of radar systems, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, and guided bombs. The US trains and supplies all Saudi Arabia's security forces. US corporations have huge investments in the Kingdom. Read on and comment » | Alexander Cockburn | Friday, October 07, 2011

Saudis and Oil Key to Global Economy
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: The fate of the world's economy and financial markets lies with Saudi Arabia's political stability and the price of oil over the next three months.

That's according to independent economist David Hale, who says an escalation of friction between oil producers Saudi Arabia and Bahrain could tip the world back into recession.

Mr Hale's opinion is backed by Magellan Financial Group's chief executive Hamish Douglass, who says a major conflict involving major oil producers could have the oil price skyrocket by $US200 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia's intervention in Bahrain two weeks ago to quell a civil uprising polarised, rather than stabilised, the situation that had since quietened down, said Mr Hale, who is global economic adviser to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

"I think it was probably too pre-emptive and probably destructive," he told AAP in an interview in Melbourne.

"I think the critical issue of a tipping point is Saudi Arabia and political stability.

"If that's jeopardised, that could send the oil price up (by) $US50 a barrel, $US100 a barrel. That would tip us into a new global recession." » | Alison Bell | AAP | Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Oil Interests Muted Bahrain Criticism: Analysts
VANCOUVER SUN: BAGHDAD - Saudi Arabia's massive oil wealth and Sunni solidarity against Shiite Iran is the main reason Arab states remained muted over repression in Bahrain, while loudly protesting over the crushing of a popular revolt in Libya, analysts say.

"Riyadh has traded Bahrain for Libya, because what happens at its borders is vital for the kingdom," said Burhan Ghalioun, director of the Centre for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He said "the allied military intervention in Libya is secondary for Gulf countries, because their relations are very bad with Moamer Gadhafi," the Libyan leader facing a revolt at home and air strikes by an international coalition to prevent his brutal crackdown on civilians.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia sent 1,000 troops across the causeway into Bahrain, and two days later police cracked down on protesters who had been camped in the centre of Manama for a month, killing three demonstrators.

"Nobody is interested in showing hostility to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. Westerners and Arab states alike need their oil and huge financial resources," Ghalioun added.

Nearly half of the world's oil reserves are owned by the Gulf monarchies, which since 1984 have been linked through the "Peninsula Shield" defence pact.

It has been conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, and the looming shadow of Iran, that has been instrumental in coalescing support behind King Hamad, the Sunni monarch who rules over a Bahrain population that is 70 per cent Shiite. » | Agence France-Presse | Tuesday, March 22, 2011

We Won't Trouble Saudi's Tyrants with Calls to Reform While We Crave Their Oil
THE GUARDIAN: Unrest will be seen as destabilising for western governments too until our dependency on Riyadh's tap is curbed

Did you hear it? The clamour from western governments for democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White House and No 10 about the shootings on Thursday, the suppression of protests on Friday, the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday? No? Nor did I.

Did we miss it, or do they believe that change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than it is in Libya? If so, on what grounds? The democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit places Libya 158th out of 167, and Saudi Arabia 160th. At least in Libya, for all the cruelties of that regime, women are not officially treated as lepers were in medieval Europe.

Last week, while explaining why protests in the kingdom is unnecessary, the foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, charmingly promised to "cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters". In other parts of the world this threat would have been figurative; he probably meant it. If mass protests have not yet materialised in Saudi Arabia, it's because the monarchy maintains a regime of terror, enforced with the help of torture, mutilation and execution.

Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the Saudi autocracy than they were in the court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003. The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the al-Yamamah deals.

Why? Future weapons sales doubtless play a role. But there's an even stronger imperative. A few days ago the French bank Société Générale warned that unrest in Saudi Arabia could push the oil price to $200 a barrel.

Abdullah's kingdom is the world's last "swing producer": the only nation capable of raising crude oil production if it falls elsewhere, or if demand outstrips supply. As a result, political disruption there is as threatening to the stability of western governments as it is to the Saudi regime. Probably more so, as our leaders wouldn't get away with gunning us down in the street. Continue reading and comment » | George Monbiot | Tuesday, March 15, 2011

My comment on this article:

Excellent article! Thank you, Mr. Monbiot.

Western leaders, including British politicians and captains of industry, perhaps more especially the British trolls, have been a-scraping, brown-nosing in the Gulf for as long as I can remember. They don’t give a-you-know-what for the well-being of the British expats that work in the Kingdom. Nor do they care about democracy. They care only for their order books. Anybody and anything that comes in the way of a good order just gets trampled on. The British establishment’s behaviour is quite disgusting and despicable in this regard. They are all self-aggrandizing, self-serving, unprincipled hypocrites, almost to a man. They couldn’t give a damn about principles; they care only about lining their own pockets. It’s a case of ‘Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! Three bags full, Sir!’ – © Mark

This comment also appears here

Gadhafi's Son Used Libya Oil Profits for Personal Gain, WikiLeaks Reveals
HAARETZ: Cable from U.S. embassy in Tripoli said Libyan leader's son Saif al-Islam had regularly siphoned off oil produced by France's Total oil company and its German partner Wintershall in offshore al Jurf field.

The United States believed in 2009 that Muammar Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam was personally profiting from part of the output of an oil field run by France's Total oil and gas company, according to a diplomatic cable published by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

The cable from the U.S. embassy in Tripoli -- part of a leaked cache made available to Aftenposten by the Wikileaks site -- said the Libyan leader's son had regularly siphoned off oil produced by Total and its German partner Wintershall in the offshore al Jurf field.

"The embassy could not determine whether Saif's tapping of oil affected the Libyan state's share or whether it came at the expense of the foreign companies," Aftenposten reported on Thursday. >>> Reuters | Thursday, March 10, 2011

Libya Oil Sales Continue


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Libya Hopes Oil Does Not Become Weapon
REUTERS: Libya hopes tensions with Western countries over a popular revolt in the country do not reach the stage where the Tripoli government considers oil as a political weapon, a top oil official said on Wednesday.

Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation, also told Reuters in an interview that Libya's troubles had created the country's worst energy crisis in decades and Libyan supply disruptions to world markets could push oil above $130 a barrel in the next month if troubles persist.

Oil markets will be watching closely to see if the departure of oil workers fearful of violence in Libya will further cut output in the world's 12th largest exporter. >>> Reporting by Michael Georgy; editing by Keiron Henderson | Tripoli | Wednesday, March 02, 2011