[Plantagenet]

A couple of hours ago Trump tweeted the following:

Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!

Hard to know what to make of this....Is Iran the "culprit."....Or is it the Houthis?.....Or somebody else?

AND is Trump really saying he is waiting for the Saudis to explain to him who was the "cause" of the attack? And what does Trump mean when he says the US will "proceed" under terms set by the Saudis???

Does that mean the Saudi get to say what the US response will be?

What if the Saudis want the US to attack Iran? Will Trump do it?

Its all very unclear and even chaotic......just like most things Trump does.

Cheers!

[careinke]

If Iran wants to hurt the US, knocking out oil production and causing high prices is the way to do it. With the US economy teetering towards recession, imagine what $3 + gas would do to it.

Higher oil prices and $3+ gasoline will help a few areas in the US, like the oil producing states of Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Alaska. But the higher prices will hurt most other areas, especially if KSA oil production remains depressed for more than a few weeks.

Cheers!

I only wish we had $3.00 gas here....

[Cog]

I speak Trump-ease so I'll translate.

What Trump is saying is that we know who did the attack but we want the Saudis to agree with our assessment before we jointly bomb the crap out of Iran.

An alternative translation is we don't who did this and we aren't going to do anything about it without the Saudis on board.

This works either way as I'd imagine the statement confuses the Iranians which is a good thing.

[Revi]

This is an act of war and I hope KSA wipes out Iran.

We have a defense pact with KSA. It started with Roosevelt, and it hasn't been turned down yet. Remember the first Gulf War? I think this is peak oil in a day, since we have 5% of world oil off the market, and not likely to return for 3 months, along with whatever damage is caused by retaliation.

Overall we'll be down this year overall, and possibly next year as well.

It turns out we were right. I am not happy about it, but here it comes...

[Armageddon]

If Iran wants to hurt the US, knocking out oil production and causing high prices is the way to do it. With the US economy teetering towards recession, imagine what $3 + gas would do to it.

Higher oil prices and $3+ gasoline will help a few areas in the US, like the oil producing states of Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Alaska. But the higher prices will hurt most other areas, especially if KSA oil production remains depressed for more than a few weeks.

Cheers!

I only wish we had $3.00 gas here....

It was $2.25 here. So I guess I meant a $1.00 gas spike. Basically $100 oil

[sparky]

.
Saudi oil is very sour , for transporting it in ships the Hydrogen sulfide has to be removed
also it has to be degassed
that's what the Abqaiq installations did , prepare the crude for transport
it will take some time ( months ) to restore those installations

By the way every media mention 5% of the world production , true enough ,
but this is not the important number ,
5 millions barrels of Saudi production are 20% of the crude oil exported on the world market
neither the US or Russia are much concerned really .
They supply their countries from their own production had have no need of importing anything
The price rise will actually be an oxygen balloon to their own producers

for major importers like Korea , Japan and largely Europe this is a disaster of the first magnitude
the global oil market is going to be starved

As a cherry on top , Saudi Arabia consume about 3.5 millions barrels for its own consumption
so the shortage is in fact going to be larger than 20%

We live in interesting times

[asg70]

Its all very unclear and even chaotic......just like most things Trump does.

Do I sense a white of, dare I say, disappointment, in Trump from you? Hell really has frozen over.

We live in interesting times

Good time to own an electric car. Bring on the $5 gas.

[Revi]

Still no bump in gas prices here locally, but I'm sure it's coming this afternoon. Fill up now if you can!

[Revi]

Still only a 5% bump in oil prices. It's not going to affect us much yet. Yet...

[Tanada]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/15/middleeast/saudi-oil-attack-lister-analysis-intl/index.html

Find it hard to believe no one has posted anything on this yet. Serious implications for global supply over the next 6 months to a year I would think. The other major problem is IF Iran was involved, and it looks like it is possible, any escalation will have major impacts on the price/supply of oil. I have always wondered when this sort of thing might rear its ugly head. Something that bears careful watching IMHO.

They did, several times. I collected them HERE to make it easier for people to find the multiple posts on the topic.

[Revi]

I have heard that it's only 2.5% of world oil taken out. I think the real problem is going to come when and if we get into a war...

[Outcast_Searcher]

This is an act of war and I hope KSA wipes out Iran.

We have a defense pact with KSA. It started with Roosevelt, and it hasn't been turned down yet. Remember the first Gulf War? I think this is peak oil in a day, since we have 5% of world oil off the market, and not likely to return for 3 months, along with whatever damage is caused by retaliation.

Overall we'll be down this year overall, and possibly next year as well.

It turns out we were right. I am not happy about it, but here it comes...

Relax, Francis. KSA might replace the bulk of that production in a week or three.

And it's not like there isn't plenty of oil globally stockpiled. And it's not like we're lacking global production capacity if the price should rise meaningfully over time.

How about we actually see a little doom trend before pretending it's here?

Oil stocks are up roughly 3% thus far (looking at stocks like XOM, CVX, and BP). This SHOULD provide a little perspective on what the stock markets are handicapping from this, over time. (The markets could be wrong, but I'm certain they collectively look deeper than "something happened so really bad things must result".)

[Plantagenet]

I have heard that it's only 2.5% of world oil taken out...

So far.

Of course If the US and KSA hit back then Iran will probably hit more targets in KSA in response.

Cheers!

[Plantagenet]

Iran just seized another oil tanker in the Straights of Hormuz

iran-news-oil-tanker-Strait-of-Hormuz-

Iran has shown they can pretty much do anything they want in the Gulf.

Cheers!

[Outcast_Searcher]

Iran just seized another oil tanker in the Straights of Hormuz

iran-news-oil-tanker-Strait-of-Hormuz-

Iran has shown they can pretty much do anything they want in the Gulf.

Cheers!

Yup. No one will ever do anything about it. The US will just abandon the Middle East, take all its military assets and go home forever.

Yippee. I'd rather save a cool $500+ billion on defense a year and use it on things like infrastructure, education, and balancing the budget anyway. That would STILL leave the US lots of military budget money for actually defending the US.

This will NOT happen, of course. Even Obama, a lefty, refused to keep his promises re ending the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures.

Getting away with shenanigans in the short run doesn't mean they can do anything they want to.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$100 oil for an extended time would crash this current economy.

Just as meaningful as your other economic pronouncements, and with just as much credible proof.

Congrats.

Mid 2010 to mid 2014 occurred. You can actually review the oil prices at that time, approaching $100ish on average. (See? Credible data. It's not that hard.)

The US economy hardly noticed. The global economy overall hardly noticed.

Next?

[Cog]

I believe I was told on this very board that the average price of oil would be below $40/bbl by now. Why should we worry about $100 oil? The ETP clan has assured me that can't happen due to a line on a chart they drew in with a crayon.

[Plantagenet]

Trump Says Iran Appears Responsible for Saudi Attack but That He Wants to Avoid War

Mr. Trump is certainly being restrained and sensible about what appears to be an Iranian attack on KSA. This seems to be a repeat of the Trump's lack of response when the Iranians shot down an American intelligence drone.

The Houthis claim they sent 10 drones to attack the Saudi oil facilities, but there are at least 19 separate sites that were attacked, some of which seem to have been hit by cruise missiles rather then drones. Either the Houthis can't count, or some of the drones/missiles were launched from elsewhere....perhaps from Iranian backed militias in Iraq or even from mainland Iran itself.

I expected Trump to rush into a war with Iran but Trump really isn't interested. And apparently the Saudis aren't really interested either.

That leaves the Iranians. If they are interested in having a war, then they'll just have to have the war all by themselves.


The Saudi oil facility in Abqaiq set on fire by an enemy attack.....

Cheers!

[Cog]

The economic situation in Iran must be pretty grim if they are willing to provoke war with the USA. Unless USA interests are directly attacked then the best response is to do nothing.

[sparky]

.
Trump strategy was ( is ) to strangle Iran economy
with the abject failure of any of the signatory to the Joint plan to provide meaningful relief
president Rouhani soft line is coming under pressure from the hard liners ,
the ultimate authority , Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is holding a more hawkish position

for Iran , doing nothing was loosing , it is in their interest to create a crisis , short of killing some US personnel