> a link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/us-britain-shale-reserves-i....
> The days of "oil weapons" look to be history.
This is a very good point. From what I have seen in the past couple
years, since the oil bubble briefly popped in 2008 and the price
dropped a large amount for several months, has been that either thr
bubble of speculation will burst again, like the gas industry in the
early 1980s, or that pressures will lead to new supplies being drilled
in new areas. The Falklands, and the areas you mentioned. Israel being
a new energy power would be fascinating for several reasons. Ditto the
UK at the Falklands.
> The Russian economy, such as it is, depends heavily on extractive
> industries. The net value added of the _rest_ of Russian economic
> activity is modest to negative. If and when the boom in gas (and oil)
> finds turns into production, the accompanying slump in hydrocarbon
> prices will hit Russia especially hard (OPEC as well).
Yes. Right now, a lot of nations that have interests counter to
western nations have been getting quite a boost, and that commodity
values boost could change if commodity prices slide.
> Iran may be a self-solving problem for the same reasons. The Iranian
> economy is heavily subsidized petro-exports.
I'm fairly certain that this is one of the biggest reasons, perhaps
the biggest one, why Iran keeps pushing certain buttons. The big
commodity speculators are all too eager to play along. If the oil
bubble goes, you're right, the profits from selling oil not only slide
on weapons, but on covering the cost of Iran having product refined
outside of Iran's borders and then re-imported.
I'd also be fascinated to see who profits from refining their oil and
selling it back to them as refined products. That would be an
interesting relationship.
Without that cash flow for
> instance, the imports of finished petroleum products gets dialed 'way
> back. The Mullahs may get their wish to live in the Dark Ages.
Yep. Iran's government is a lot weaker than the West seems to give
them credit for, politically. They are currently bracketed by
Democracies, or perhaps "Proto-Democracies" like South Korea was for
several decades. The people are seeing that work, and don't like their
system. Plus their population is young and the Iranian economy is
terrible. All the economic problems of some other nations, and then
some, plus the people feel they have no voice in it.
I am more and more convinced that the way to topple the Mullahs is the
way of 1970s-1980s Poland rather than anything military. In the
fashion of most dictatorships their own people want them gone even
more than anyone else does.
> Paul