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The major international oil producers have known about the Iraqi reserves for about eighty years now. They have steadfastly held the production down because doing so is in their best interests to keep petroleum prices up worldwide.
Oil is a resource with inelastic demand. The market will only use so much oil in any given period of time, and even a small increase over that amount causes prices to fall. If your SUV has a 14-gallon tank and gas falls to US$2.00, you are not going to put 28 gallons into your SUV. You probably aren't going to drive to and from work two or three times a day to take advantage of the windfall, either. So the oil majors have learned to keep supply at just the edge of insufficiency -- and prefer to err on the side of too little, as happened in California just last week. This keeps prices high and demand from declining too much. It's a delicate balancing act that is eighty years in the making. Don't imagine the majors are going to give it up at any cost.
Iraq has historically been limited from development through neglect, through political instability, through international sanction. In 2003 with the Bush invasion of Iraq, this program changed to one of active interference and deliberate internal sabotage -- bungled contracts, civil insurrection, and control of the Oil Ministry. The Coalition departure of combat troops from Iraq did not halt this program, nor make it easier for Iraq to exploit and profit from its own resources. The oil majors simply won't deal with Iraq except to handle critical shortages elsewhere in their system, a situation that hasn't obtained since 2003.
Civil insurrection will continue, neglect will continue, the majors will continue to refuse to accept Iraqi oil on the market until there is a great need, and the reserves of Iraq will remain untapped and inaccessible. Even China cannot break this deadlock; their leverage here is slight and there are easier deposits closer that are not wracked with war and insurrection. I expect this situation to continue until oil shortages become more general, in about thirty years, in which case Iraq can expect to be invaded and conquered again for its oil. This time, I expect a far more brutal occupation and a far higher death rate.
You must come to understand that this isn't about oil, it isn't about national development, and it isn't even entirely about money. It's about power, and the power to extract money from desperate people. The power to make people desperate is what keeps the petroleum markets operating at the efficiencies they do, and have, for eighty years and more. Don't imagine it's about anything else.
As the affordablecomputerguy shows, religion is also a way to make people desperate. He's about as desperate as they come, which means he is going to go the way the oil majors suggest. He can't help himself; he's lost in his emotions, and that's all the oil majors need to make sure his income becomes theirs.
Don't believe me? Go review Iraqi and world oil production figures from the 1920s forward. Then take a look at the worldwide increase in petroleum prices over that same period. Then you can tell me what happened to both in 2003. Though I think you'll be too astonished to speak, frankly. Until you study this industry you can't know what it has really been doing behind the scenes for nearly a century. You might not believe it at all.
Oil is a resource with inelastic demand. The market will only use so much oil in any given period of time, and even a small increase over that amount causes prices to fall. If your SUV has a 14-gallon tank and gas falls to US$2.00, you are not going to put 28 gallons into your SUV. You probably aren't going to drive to and from work two or three times a day to take advantage of the windfall, either. So the oil majors have learned to keep supply at just the edge of insufficiency -- and prefer to err on the side of too little, as happened in California just last week. This keeps prices high and demand from declining too much. It's a delicate balancing act that is eighty years in the making. Don't imagine the majors are going to give it up at any cost.
Iraq has historically been limited from development through neglect, through political instability, through international sanction. In 2003 with the Bush invasion of Iraq, this program changed to one of active interference and deliberate internal sabotage -- bungled contracts, civil insurrection, and control of the Oil Ministry. The Coalition departure of combat troops from Iraq did not halt this program, nor make it easier for Iraq to exploit and profit from its own resources. The oil majors simply won't deal with Iraq except to handle critical shortages elsewhere in their system, a situation that hasn't obtained since 2003.
Civil insurrection will continue, neglect will continue, the majors will continue to refuse to accept Iraqi oil on the market until there is a great need, and the reserves of Iraq will remain untapped and inaccessible. Even China cannot break this deadlock; their leverage here is slight and there are easier deposits closer that are not wracked with war and insurrection. I expect this situation to continue until oil shortages become more general, in about thirty years, in which case Iraq can expect to be invaded and conquered again for its oil. This time, I expect a far more brutal occupation and a far higher death rate.
You must come to understand that this isn't about oil, it isn't about national development, and it isn't even entirely about money. It's about power, and the power to extract money from desperate people. The power to make people desperate is what keeps the petroleum markets operating at the efficiencies they do, and have, for eighty years and more. Don't imagine it's about anything else.
As the affordablecomputerguy shows, religion is also a way to make people desperate. He's about as desperate as they come, which means he is going to go the way the oil majors suggest. He can't help himself; he's lost in his emotions, and that's all the oil majors need to make sure his income becomes theirs.
Don't believe me? Go review Iraqi and world oil production figures from the 1920s forward. Then take a look at the worldwide increase in petroleum prices over that same period. Then you can tell me what happened to both in 2003. Though I think you'll be too astonished to speak, frankly. Until you study this industry you can't know what it has really been doing behind the scenes for nearly a century. You might not believe it at all.
Posted by progan01@...
11th Oct