OPEC – Astute News

May 13, 2020

Black Swans Fly In

A black swan is slang for an unexpected event with large consequences. 2020 has brought us two so far: the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of oil prices. Each will have potent consequences for the Imperium Americanum. And there is a nest of black cygnets maturing. COVID-19 A new infectious disease was noticed in China at the end of last...

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April 19, 2020

OPEC+ Deal Resets and Reshapes Oil Geopolitics

A perfect deal is where all protagonists get something out of it. All oil-producing countries stand to gain if the oil price rebounds. In bare bones, the OPEC+ group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia finalized, in a nail-biting photo finish on April 12, an agreement to cut oil production by a combined 9.7 million barrels per day (mbpd) for May and...

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April 10, 2020

The Revival of OPEC+ Is the Next Step in the New Detente

The emergency OPEC+ talks that are scheduled for 9 April are the next step in the “New Detente” between the US and Russia even though America won’t formally be represented at that meeting seeing as how Moscow is making moves that show its interest in stabilizing the global energy markets so as to surprisingly save its rival’s sinking shale industry,...

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March 20, 2020

Playing for Higher Stakes: Saudi Arabia Gambles on Oil War with Russia

Saudi Arabia’s oil spat with Russia throws a spanner into the works of the Kingdom’s long-standing effort to hedge its bets, a strategy that has taken on added significance as the Gulf comes to grips with the likelihood that the region’s security architecture will fundamentally change. Saudi Arabia, despite a primary focus on close ties to the United States, has...

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March 13, 2020

How Black Swans Are Shaping Planet Panic

Is the planet under the spell of a pair of black swans – a Wall Street meltdown, caused by an alleged oil war between Russia and the House of Saud, plus the uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 – leading to an all-out “cross-asset pandemonium” as billed by Nomura? Or, as German analyst Peter Spengler suggests, whatever the averted climax in the...

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March 13, 2020

Saudi-Initiated All-Out Oil War Could Lead to Collapse of Kingdom Itself

Saudi Arabia launched an all-out oil war offering unprecedented discounts and flooding the market in an attempt to capture a larger share and defeat other oil producers. This “scorched earth” approach caused the biggest oil price fall since the war in the Persian Gulf in 1991. It all began on March 8 when Riyadh cut its April pricing for crude...

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March 11, 2020

Russia’s Rejection of OPEC+ was the Result of Cold Geostrategic Calculations

Russia rejected its OPEC+ partners’ request late last week to further curtail its oil production next month because it understood that doing so would make its American shale rivals more competitive, which would in turn empower the US to continue weaponizing energy for geostrategic ends, thus eventually leading to a dangerous scenario that Moscow might have been powerless to reverse...

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March 9, 2020

Russia Just Told the World, “No.”

There is real power in the word “No.” In fact, I’d argue that it is the single most powerful word in any language. In the midst of the worst market meltdown in a dozen years which has at its source problems within global dollar-funding markets, Russia found itself in the position to exercise the Power of No. Multiple overlapping crises...

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Tag: OPEC

Black Swans Fly In

OPEC+ Deal Resets and Reshapes Oil Geopolitics

The Revival of OPEC+ Is the Next Step in the New Detente

Playing for Higher Stakes: Saudi Arabia Gambles on Oil War with Russia

How Black Swans Are Shaping Planet Panic

Saudi-Initiated All-Out Oil War Could Lead to Collapse of Kingdom Itself

Russia’s Rejection of OPEC+ was the Result of Cold Geostrategic Calculations

Russia Just Told the World, “No.”