Good bye OPEC! Farewell, “oil and gas” dictatorship! The world economy has crossed the threshold of enormous change in the commodities market. Countries controlling the reserves of “black gold” and “blue fuel” is no longer able to negotiate and influence the prices of strategic raw materials and, most importantly, to determine, at least to some extent, the future of mankind and economic growth of the planet.
These are brief results of yet another fruitless meeting the largest exporters of “muddy oily sludge” in Vienna. The tea party of Arab sheiks, Iranian preachers, African dictators with temperamental Latin macho was preceded by a cascade of conflicting news.
This week we learned about the fall of oil and gasoline in the United States by 1.5 million barrels, which in theory, should even for a short period of time, but to shake prices. This, as we remember, did not happen. Flammable barrel of mark Brent cost like 49 – 50 dollars, and did not move from that mark. Although he could crawl and down based on news from Russia, which continues despite the trend to increase the intensity of work drilling. For the past six months and recorded a 2.3% growth in the number extracted from the ground of liquid hydrocarbons. The country came close to the astronomical level of 11 million barrels per day.
Messages from Iran were similar. The Islamic revolutionaries, who lived for 37 years under the weight of sanctions, restore its mining industry much more intensively than previously expected. The Ayatollah has already dumped on the market 3.8 million barrels instead of 3.5, which he predicted at this point in time, which is also a stress to the barrel with a minus sign… And the markets are silent. Several news stories from Riyadh’s readiness and preparedness to begin to quantitatively regulate the oil market also remained unheeded as the idle meeting all exporters, the results of which, it seems, can guess any student, not to mention a professional broker. There is no reaction. But once to the words of bearded men in arapatka and sassy dictators listened to the most developed countries…
“I think regulation is the traditional way that we have experienced in the past may never be repeated. Of course, we’re not going to offer specific price targets”, – said is not encouraging for the oil exporters of the phrase the Minister of energy and industry of Saudi Arabia Khalid al-falih. De facto, one of the largest suppliers of raw materials admitted their own helplessness and inability to affect the current pricing environment that, in principle, not so far from the truth.
Now it becomes clear why we have not observed and not observed neither instantaneous nor gradual rebound in the market “black gold”. Time has shown that no single market factor in relation to this item on today. Once in order to blow up the situation, it was possible to play off one or more Arab countries and count the profit. Today, several exporters are immersed in the chaos of civil war, and the price of a barrel is still low. Wrong the experts and with the collapse of the shale revolution. The number of old and new drilling, of course, was reduced to reasonable values, but in equilibrium the price of fuel is also affected very indirectly.
What allows to keep prices at a certain level? The answer is obvious – speculation. About it not once, not twice told Russian sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky long before the beginning of the crisis of overproduction of raw materials. Who cares how many barrels of oil workers in Tyumen, if they are in the process of transportation at a premium resell 15 times before the moment that it will pass the procedure of cracking in the refineries? At some stage punters wanted to take profits, and began the withdrawal of funds, and someone – to earn even more by playing on the slide… That’s the whole market that has nothing to do with the structure of supply and demand. Both, with a strong desire, it is possible to artificially inflate several times, undoing all the efforts of market analysts.
All of the above gives us, the Russians, the moral right, on the one hand, to demand dismissal of officials, which impose on us the raw model of economy with two energy streams in Europe, with other experts predicting the collapse of the shale revolution and the restoration of price tags in late 2014 – early 2015-th years. As you can see, not without reason at the time, a complete inability to forecasting scenarios showed all of the economic elite of the country.
The humanity of the XXI century changed the rules in this segment of the promise of many changes. Some of the archetypes and symbols the civilization disappeared forever. We will witness the birth and rise of a new Saddam Hussein – uncontrolled “raw” dictator, sincerely believed that by exchanging the required number of barrels for the equivalent number of tanks, he can become the ruler of the Arab world. And wanting to wage all-out war for hydrocarbons, prosponsirovat another maniac schizophrenic is not there.
“Raw revolution” will not allow to be born the new Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the man who dreamed of using expensive barrels of “black gold” to build in the desert a prosperous Libya, which was supposed to be an example, but where’s the donor for the rest of Africa. Repeat this project with different structure of the economy will be very difficult.
Gradually it becomes a utopian model of government of the Bolivarian socialism in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Comandante traded billions of petrodollars, to satisfy the primary needs of the population, dropping to chance the development of the economy, that the country will soon pay a default, a regime change and total sale of state property.
Yes, and Vladimir Putin and sovereign democracy and commodity Empire that threatens to turn the valve off to the whole continent, recent history also will not generate.
To stay on the political map 2050-th year, and Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, Iran and Nigeria will have to find a new growth point in the fierce competition in other markets. To cope with this task, not all. But to survive in the long term to do this is vital.
