mlts22 wrote:
4: There isn't anything that keeps Saudi Arabia and OPEC countries from doing another oil embargo like what happened in 1972. If they sell to China, I'm sure they would get the PLA to garrison troops as a deterrent to seizing wells by force. Same with Venezuela, where China is their main customer... which is why China is cutting a new canal in Nicaragua just so they can get oil from there.
The oil "embargo" was just a political ploy of diversion. The truth is there was plenty of oil and Saudi wanted to sell it to the US. The issue was Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard and let the currency float. Dollar value dropped significantly and the Saudis wanted more money. But then Nixon had put price caps on gasoline. Oil companies were not willing to buy the Saudi oil, refine it and sell at a loss. All the oil companies could do is get what they could from Texas from their own wells.
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I was at the Shell Oil refinery back in the early seventies. Tankers were anchored FULL of crude out in San Pablo Bay. High plimsoll counts do not lie. The refinery was running at 10% capacity. It helps to go eyeball to eyeball with gauges in LOP (light oil processing) control center, which I did.
Yes always was plenty of oil and a willing buyer if the price had been allowed to rise to reflect the declining value of the dollar at that time.
Anyway the expanding lithium battery market combined with solar will forever reduce the demand for oil.
It was the Saudi King that mused that the stone age did not end for lack of stones.
Saudi Prince wants the oil age to be extended for as long as possible.
JMHO of course.
