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| Russia |
| Russia faces oil depletion |
| 2004-08-11 |
| Posted by:Dutchgeek |
| #5 Guys, I don't think this is real; a quick perusal of the newsletter in question shows it comes from the "oil peak" people, who believe that oil production is rapidly falling because of depletion, and are ignoring other factors like the Lukoil scandals and the like. These are the people who, for instance, plot a graph of Venezuelan oil production during the great strike of a couple years back, and proclaim that Venezuela must be rapidly running out of oil. (I don't know if they've mentioned Nigeria yet, but I'm willing to bet when they do they will mysteriously forget to mention the effects of Nigeria's continual almost-civil-war as well). They mistake correlation for causation, IMHO. I think part of this is to muddy the water on behalf of all the feudalists, fascists, and whatnot who want to convince themselves that not only is the US war in Iraq over oil, but the US war in Afghanistan (because of the pipeline), and before that, the Clinton Administration's war in the Balkans (after all, there's some oil there, and someone once thought for about five minutes or so about running a pipeline from Azerbajan to there... a while back...) Anyway, read it for yourself and see. Let me look for some good quotes: "Only a few months ago there was much discussion of how OPEC would keep oil prices in a $ 22-$28 band, but those days now seem like distant history. The traders do from time to time grasp at straws and mark prices down on the basis of some ephermeral comment by someone, but before long the upward pressure reasserts itself. The flat-earth community in government and the official international institutes like to explain this in terms of political tensions in the Middle East or as a demand spasm in China, being unable to bring themselves to admit that the world is now running flat out with no spare capacity..."\ "OPEC was formed to restrict production to support the revenue of the main producing countries facing uncontrolled competition from the private industry, which was working flat out to bring in new production from places it did control such as the North Sea." "The Organization was only marginally successful in its mission, largely because some of its members failed to respect their agreements. It is likely to be even less successful in any move to increace production to reduce price, even to the extent that it is physically possible. In fact, OPEC has effectively passed its peak becoming substantially redundant as Nature now does its job for it." Here's another particularly telling quote: "An alternative proposal for a line through Georgia to the Black Sea was also considered. But it involved the risks of increaced tanker traffic through the environmentally sensitive Bosphorus, or transshipment in Bulgaria to a second pipeline to the Adriatic passing through Kosovo, where a large US military base was established for possibly not unrelated reasons." As I said, pious calculations meant to provide political cover for those who DON'T want to admit to themselves that political turmoil in the Middle East, or South America, or elsewhere is a major factor in oil prices. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-08-12 00:38 |
| #4 Jen - I don't follow gossip, so I don't know the timeline, but I wonder if his divorce to his wife of many years coincides with his downhill mojo slide. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-11 18:38 |
| #3 BS, I thought about Clancy's "Executive Orders" a lot on 9/11. (although he's lost his mojo since 9/11, IMO) |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-11 18:06 |
| #2 Good one, eLarson! :-p IIRC, the Russian oil shortage in Red Storm Rising was caused by a local muslim convert. Clancy's prophetic, no? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-11 17:54 |
| #1 oh God! Red Storm Rising... aiieeeee... |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-08-11 17:37 |