From oilprice:
A month after President Donald Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposing sanctions on Tehran’s oil, Iran’s archrival and OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia got in June its Arab Gulf fellow cartel members and OPEC+ deal partner Russia on board to start pumping more oil to offset the expected loss of Iranian supply.
Just five months later, Saudi Arabia and OPEC are hinting at a fresh oil production cut, as rising production and signs of waning demand growth point to oversupply next year.
The oil market and analysts—who were questioning just two months ago the Saudi and Russian ability to offset expected steep Iranian losses—are now thinking that OPEC and its allies reacted too early to come to the rescue of global oil supply.
Analysts say that President Trump, intentionally or not, ‘duped’ the Saudis into overproducing to compensate for what was expected to surely be more than 1 million bpd and even close to 2 million bpd loss from Iran.
The Saudis and Russia actually never said that they were compensating for Iran—their goal, as always, was to ensure ‘market stability’, OPEC’s favorite buzzword.With regard to this issue, we've been talking about "bait and switch" since at least November 13, 2018. Whatever.
All through the summer and early fall, the United States was hinting that this time around sanctions will be more severe than during the Obama administration and that the goal was to have Iranian oil exports down to ‘zero.’
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Collusion
The EU is putting pressure on Luxembourg to issue a "special purpose vehicle" to thwart Trump's sanctions on Iran. SPV. For the archives. LOL.
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Upgrade
I'm always nervous when making a major upgrade to Apple operating system but tonight I upgraded to macOS Mojave 10.14.1 and am thrilled with it. FaceTime with up to 32 people at one time. I don't even have 32 friends. LOL. Extended family members? Maybe fourteen. Maybe the next family wedding could be done on FaceTime. Think of all the money saved in travel and lodging expenses.
What's new with Mojave? Link here.
The installation took about 30 minutes, maybe longer, but it went very, very smoothly. I've learned to be patient when doing these huge upgrades.
My first real point of contention with POTUS since election day.
ReplyDeleteAnnounces sanctions, lets market react- up to $70 dollar range
Then announces waivers to select countries sends market near crashing into $55 range.
First time I have felt he was playing games with the market- Might just be me
I'm pretty upset. This is what Obama was always accused of: setting "red lines" and then ignoring them. Trump lost a lot of credibility with his base. He spent a lot of political capital to push these harsher sanctions through -- just before the midterms -- and then he backtracked. And now he claims "victory." Color me "not impressed."
DeleteWell, I'm glad it's not just me. One of the times I can see his need/desire/belief that he can negotiate anything, actually gets in the way of sound policy
ReplyDeleteAgree completely.
DeleteSorry for the late reply. I turned in early last night. Took the morning off.
But back to your comment. Agree completely. The affect it had on the price of oil does not bother me as much as doing what Obama was always accused of doing: drawing a line in the sand, and then ignoring it.