Political Crossfire Forums

Lumina · Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 14797

"RIYADH (Reuters) - Top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Friday it was taking measures to protect its oil and economic installations from a 'terrorist threat'.

Western naval forces in the Gulf have been deployed to counter a possible seaborne threat to its Ras Tanura oil terminal.

'The terrorist threat to the kingdom's economic installation exists and it is a declared goal of the straying faction to affect the interests of the Saudi citizen,' an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

'Saudi security forces are cooperating and coordinating with the Saudi navy to take the necessary security measures,' he told Reuters."

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-10-27T151907Z_01_L27837086_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-SAUDI-THREAT.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

My opinion? I'm concerned. Doesn't "straying faction" mean homegrown Saudis?

Alizard · Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:14 pm Post subject:

That goes in the DUHH! file. Those oil fields are a prime target, and the radicals see the saudis as allies of the USA.

L337SIMBA · Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 961 Location: Ottawa.

Omg, hopefully you aren't realizing this now ? :shock: :shock: :shock:
It's been a prime target since hmm,m... the 1940's ? Since they found a crap load of oil reserves in Saudi Arabia?

nandan

Angelicus · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 4269

At the risk of sounding like a liberal conspiracy theorist, I have too question the timing of this.

It is no secret that the Saudis are not happy that the price of crude has gone down from the record highs we've seen the past couple of years.

So what do they do to get them back up there? Why it's simple, wip out a terrorist threat to the supplies.

Create apprehension in the markets and watch the prices go up.

As has been pointed out in this thread already, this threat is nothing new, it has been there for quite some time now.

This kind of market manipulation is just another example of why we need too open up our own reserves and let the ME eat its oil.

00timh · Joined: 08 Nov 2004 Posts: 12729 Location: upstate NY

Angelicus wrote: At the risk of sounding like a liberal conspiracy theorist, I have too question the timing of this.

It is no secret that the Saudis are not happy that the price of crude has gone down from the record highs we've seen the past couple of years.

So what do they do to get them back up there? Why it's simple, wip out a terrorist threat to the supplies.

Create apprehension in the markets and watch the prices go up.

As has been pointed out in this thread already, this threat is nothing new, it has been there for quite some time now.

This kind of market manipulation is just another example of why we need too open up our own reserves and let the ME eat its oil. I would think that if anything he Saudi's and the other OPEC members do not want to see the prices go back up to where they were before. When they were up in the 70's it created an oversupply of oil. Charge too much and people will not buy as much. Then they have to begin reducing exports which means that they won't be selling as much oil. the idea of any business is to sell as much of the product as possible to achieve the highest amount of profit. Raising prices to the point where people begin to look for alternative means of energy does not fit into that equation.

I very much agree that by opening more of our own reseverse that will likely cause OPEC to drop prices just to be competitive. If we were to seriously threaten to do so I could see them significantly dropping the price because they know there is enough sentiment against us doing so that they could persuade us to continue to buy their oil because it is cheap enough to not feel motivated to dig up our own land or drill off the coast.