World's largest oil reserves in Iraq

[vigilant]

Alice wrote:

But what do you make of this? There was a recent article quoting an Iranian official saying basically the same thing, that there's no shortage of oil but that the prices were being driven up by speculators, but I can't find it now


This is as true as it can possibly be. I used to pay over 600 dollars a month for real time data feed from the futures market. I watched speculators drive up the price of oil. These people buy oil contracts but never take "physical delivery" of the oil. They simply create global chaos, drive up the price of oil, and then sell their contracts for more money.

People that think in terms of "supply and demand" are totally missing the oil game. Food commodities are now in play too, in the exact same way.

It was pointed out in an earlier comment that oil went from $20.00 a barrel in the year 2002, to over $130.00 now in the year 2008.

In six years oil suddenly became so short on the supply side that it warranted that sort of rise in price?

I think "not"........

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Thanks for the informative answer, Alice. As you could probably tell from me getting Al Sistani's religious affiliation wrong (helpfully pointed out by Ben D - yeah, thanks for that, mate! I love looking stupid, hehe. ) I am nowhere near as clued up on the current situation in Iraq as I should be, or as I sometimes like to think I am.

I agree, though. No person who has the best interests of ANY country at heart will ever recommend partition as a solution. Kashmir, Palestine, Northern Ireland - and many others - are testament to the fact that it is a policy designed to benefit the larger powers with interests in the area, rather than the people on the ground.

I remember reading that Machiavelli's "The Prince" was President Bush's favourite book. I was surprised. That he could read.

But it is worth bearing in mind that Machiavelli was not writing about geopolitics, or about diplomacy and war between nation states, but about the practical measures necessary to manipulate smaller city-states and regional religious interests within a country in order to gain overall control of them.

Since the Iraq war was planned long in advance of his presidency, I find that telling, if not, um, i admit, wholly relevant.

Vigilant, I agree. There is plenty of oil to go around, for now. But it's not being allowed to go around.

If I had recently made myself very unpopular by stealing vast amounts of a commodity that the world is crying out for, I would be in no hurry to see it's price decrease either, though.

[Nordic]

There's a lot of money to be made from driving up the price of oil, and they're not all in oil.

Getting "oil from coal" plants up and running, and getting the approval of such in the public mind, is also another Big One. "Clean Coal" to "replace" that expensive midwestern oil, is something they're trying to shove down our throats right now.

China is in on it pretty heavily, too, right now. Coal into oil/gasoline. They have a lot of coal over there. Then there are the Oil Sands in Canada, which are absolutely enormous.

A lot of good reasons to drive up the price. You can also then justify driving up the price of everything else, food especially.