Sunday, October 18, 2015

From The [London] Telegraph:

Almost a year ago Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s long-serving former oil minister, emerged from a tense meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) looking red faced and furious.

Within the privacy of OPEC’s steel-clad secretariat building in Vienna’s quiet Helferstorferstrasse, Ramirez had remonstrated angrily with his counterpart from Saudi Arabia, Ali al-Naimi, about the urgent need for the group of major oil producers to push up the price of crude back to a level around $100 per barrel.

The two men couldn’t be more different in appearance or world view. The diminutive Al-Naimi is a rarity in Saudi Arabia, having risen to arguably the country’s most important job from humble origins as a Bedouin shepherd boy.

However, Al-Naimi stands as a titan in the global oil industry and wields the real power within OPEC, a group that controls 60 percent of the world’s oil ...

... Heading into the meeting in Vienna, Ramirez, who is now Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, has already signalled his country’s intention to press for a change in policy. Lower oil prices have crippled Venezuela’s economy, where a 22 percent spike in food price inflation in August has meant the country is even struggling to feed itself.

Ramirez said he wants OPEC to cut production by introducing a series of price bands starting at $70 per barrel. The proposals he said would be formally presented for discussion at a meeting of “technical experts” which OPEC is convening on October 21.

This has potentially put Venezuela and its close allies within OPEC, including Algeria, Nigeria and Iran, on a collision course with Al-Naimi and his Gulf Arab clique who still appear determined to maintain their current strategy.

According to OPEC’s former president, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, a change in policy is unlikely without any cuts in production being matched by countries outside the group such as Russia and Mexico.

“OPEC has no choice because they no longer have the tools to be a global “swing producer” anymore,” Al-Attiyah said. The former Qatari energy minister points to OPEC’s falling share of the world market, down to just over 30 percent from almost 60 percent 20 years ago.

Saudi Arabia’s power within Opec comes from its vast oil reserves and production, which it has increased significantly since last November. It pumps around 10.5m barrels per day (bopd) of crude and has the capacity to increase output by 12.5m bopd if it so chooses, which gives it tremendous power alone to influence world oil markets.

Much more at the link.

******************************* 

Photos For The Granddaughters

Sophia: maybe we should cut the watermelon into smaller bite-size pieces.
(She is not crying as some folks thought; she was laughing and having a great time; 
she is simply straining to get her mouth open wide enough for the watermelon.)

Arianna: preparing for her audition.

************************ 

Martha Gellhorn

By 1945, Gellhorn's relationship with Hemingway had come to an end. She had moved on, serial relationships, and had adopted an Italian 19-month-old boy. In a letter dated February 3, 1950, written from Cuernavaca to her new beau she asked if he had read Hemingway's latest book, Across the River and Into the Trees.

But just now I have to write you about Ernest's new book; have you bought your February copy of Cosmopolitan? If not, do so now.

I have just read this first installment, with a whiskey to help me, and curiosity to spur me on. I know I am biased and unjust; but I find it revolting. I also realize he will never have to write his autobiography because he has been doing it, from the first novel, chapter by chapter, each book keeping pacing with his calendar years, building up this dream vision of himself.

Now he is a fifty-year-old Colonel of Infantry with high blood pressure, a great education, and a passion for duck shooting. The women get younger and younger; so that now the woman is an olive-haired Italian (perhaps Princess, by the next installment) of nineteen.

And I feel quite sick, I cannot describe this to you. Shivering sick. I watch him adoring his image, with such care and tolerance and such accuracy in detail....

.... And I feel sick, and you know what else: I weep for the eight years I spent, almost eight (light dawned a little earlier) worshipping his image with him, and I weep for whatever else I was cheated of due to that time-serving; and I weep for all that is permanently lost because I shall never, really, trust a man again.

You must read it and tell me, if anyone not me, not knowing who sits for the portrait, (with an expression of reverent self-love on his face) will accept this and find it fine. Perhaps it is. To me, it has a loud sound of madness and a terrible smell of decay.

I am re-reading Islands In The Stream and that was also my first thought: this is simply an autobiography, chapter by chapter of the author's life. It's not bad; it's just not good.

************************************

Too Much To Do