Despite
the president’s Alzheimers or narcissism (or because of it? He is
capable of saying things that are brutally true that others’ would
dare.
Saudi
Arabia can survive ‘2,000 years’ without US help & not face
civil war like America – MBS
6
Octoer, 2018
Saudi
society fully supports the royals and those few fringe extremist
elements who stir trouble are being dealt with, believes crown prince
Mohammed bin Salman, who claimed the kingdom can survive for 2,000
years on its own.
Known
in the West by his initials MBS, the crown prince may, as he said,
‘love’ working with the US and Trump but, when it comes to
thinking of examples of successful managers of social change, he is
decidedly ‘America last.’ Any drastic financial, political and
legal reforms come with a hefty price tag, he emphasized, drawing
parallels with the history of the United States.
“...if
you look at the United States of America, when for example they
wanted to free the slaves. What was the price? Civil war. It divided
America for a few years. Thousands, tens of thousands of people died
to win freedom for the slaves,” Bin
Salman told Bloomberg,
in a wide-ranging interview published Friday.
“Here
we are trying to get rid of extremism and terrorism without civil
war, without stopping the country from growing, with continuous
progress in all elements,” the
crown prince added. “So
if there is a small price in that area, it’s better than paying a
big debt to do that move.”
Two
weeks? Try 2,000 years!
Bin
Salman brushed off US President Donald Trump’s somewhat humiliating
comments about Saudi Arabia perishing within two weeks without
American support, saying that his kingdom existed decades before the
US and will need “something
like around 2,000 years to maybe face some dangers.”
“Actually,
we will pay nothing for our security," the
prince firmly stated, explaining that since Trump’s statements were
clearly addressed to a domestic audience he did not find them
offensive.
“We
believe that all the armaments we have from the United States of
America are paid for, it’s not free armament,” he
reiterated. Explaining that, after Trump became US president, Saudi
Arabia has already agreed to procure nearly 60 percent of its arms
from Washington, he emphasized that Riyadh owes nothing extra because
it always pays for weapons supplies in cash.
“I
love working with him. I really like working with him,” bin
Salman said of Trump, calling his comments a “one
percent”disagreement
between allies.
Saudis
aren’t scared, only 1,500 ‘extremists’ arrested in 3 years
Bin
Salman has been the public face of “reforms” that Riyadh has
embarked on to diversify its economy and relax some of its laws –
such as allowing women to drive, for example – since he became
crown prince of Saudi Arabia in 2017.
Asked
about discontent with the pace of those reforms and why some Saudis
seem afraid to speak to journalists, bin Salman said they shouldn’t
be and that only those “extremists” who
organize street protests or cooperate with foreign “intelligence
agencies” should
fear imminent arrest. In the course of “fighting
extremism, fighting terrorism” over
the past three years, only “about
1,500” people
have been arrested, he claimed, comparing it to 50,000 in Turkey
after the attempted military coup there.
Anyone
shown to have “links
with intelligence against Saudi Arabia or extremism or
terrorists” will
face Saudi law, bin Salman stated. “We
have do to this. We cannot fight extremists having 500 or 700
extremists on the streets recruiting people.” He
named Iran and Qatar as the main suspects.
While
the Salafist Saudi Kingdom has long been at odds with the
predominantly Shia Islamic Republic on the other side of the Gulf,
relations with Qatar have soured in recent years. Riyadh and its
allies declared a blockade of the peninsular monarchy in June 2107,
accusing Qatar, the owners of Al Jazeera, of secretly collaborating
with Iran and of supporting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
and other terrorists. The tensions show no signs of ending anytime
soon.
Saudi
Arabia Tells Trump No More Oil
This
is a risk for Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia has always depended
a great deal on the United States
the
Trump administration has its answer--Saudi Arabia does not intend to
deploy any more of its vaunted spare capacity to counter rising
prices
5
October, 2018
Saudi
Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman responded publicly to
President Donald Trump's recent spate of Tweets and statements
concerning oil. While the President has been asking for Saudi Arabia
to increase oil production to flood the market and keep prices down,
the prince said no. This is a risk for Saudi Arabia, because Saudi
Arabia has always depended a great deal on the United States --even
its currency is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar--and the Trump
administration has shown that it will take a hard stance on economic
issues even with its closest allies.
President
Donald Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the
Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, March 20, 2018, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
This
week, oil prices reached highs not seen in four years. The
international benchmark, Brent, hit $86 per barrel and the U.S.
benchmark, WTI jumped to over $76 per barrel. U.S. President Donald
Trump has been unrelenting in his public and private pressure on OPEC
and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil and lower prices. After all,
from his perspective, the increase in prices is a result of his new
sanctions against Iran - which Saudi Arabia fully supports - and
therefore, Saudi Arabia should deploy its spare capacity to ensure
that American consumers don't face undue pain at the pump.
Saudi
Arabian oil minister Khalid al Falih tried to reassure markets that
Saudi Arabia would increase production but that the market is
actually very well supplied. The 9% increase in oil prices over the
past 3 months, he said, is the fault of financial speculators, not a
lack of supply. He's right, but the market and the speculators didn't
believe him.
That
wasn't what the Trump administration wanted to hear, so the President
ratcheted up his war of words during a rally in Mississippi. He
delivered a low level threat to Saudi Arabia's King Salman when he
said the following:
We
protect Saudi Arabia. Would you say they're rich? And I love the King
... King Salman but I said 'King, we're protecting you. You might not
be there for two weeks without us. You have to pay for your military.
Still,
oil prices barely budged and the AAA reported that gasoline prices in
the United States have reached their highest levels in 4 years.
Soon
after, Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman addressed global oil
prices in an interview with Bloomberg where he said,
The
request that America made to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries is
to be sure that if there is any loss of supply from Iran, that we
will supply that. And that happened....So we export as much as 2
barrels for any barrel that disappeared from Iran recently. So we did
our job and more. We believe the higher price that we have in the
last month, it’s not because of Iran. It’s mostly because of
things happening in Canada, and Mexico, Libya, Venezuela and other
countries that moved the price a little bit higher.
Now
the Trump administration has its answer--Saudi Arabia does not intend
to deploy any more of its vaunted spare capacity to counter rising
prices . There is still the opportunity for more oil to come on to
the market from other places - the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait, the United States, Canada, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Libya and Nigeria. But all of those will take some time and
investment. Saudi Arabia could put another 500,000 barrels per day on
the market tomorrow - if it wanted to. But according to the crown
prince, it does not.
Now
the ball is in President Trump's court.
Ellen
R. Wald, Ph.D. is a historian and consultant on energy and
geopolitics. She is the author of Saudi, Inc., president of
Transversal Consulting & a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council
Kuwait
Oil to U.S. Stops for 1st Time Since 1990-91 Gulf War
2
October, 2018
Kuwait
has all but stopped shipping crude to the U.S. for the first time
since the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1990, eroding
an economic link between Washington and the Arab petro-monarchy.
The
halt is the latest sign that booming demand for oil in Asia,
particularly as the U.S. re-imposes sanctions on Iran, and rising
supplies from America on the back of the shale revolution are
re-drawing petroleum trade routes.
U.S.
imports of Kuwaiti crude fell to zero over four weeks through late
September, the first time that shipments have completely stopped
since weekly data became available in June 2010, according to the
U.S. Energy Information Administration. Based on monthly data,
Kuwaiti shipments to the U.S. haven’t stopped since May 1992, when
the OPEC producer was still recovering from oil-field fires ignited
by retreating Iraqi troops in the first Gulf War.
Kuwait
is diverting its barrels instead into the more lucrative Asian
market, where prices are higher for the type of high-sulfur crude the
small Middle Eastern nation pumps, according to a person familiar
with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the matter
isn’t public.
Kuwaiti
oil fetches about $80 a barrel in Asia compared with about $79 in the
U.S., according to Bloomberg calculations based on benchmark prices
and the country’s official selling prices. Kuwaiti crude sells at
about $76 a barrel in Europe.
“Iranian
sanctions are providing a chance for others to sell more into Asia
where prices are better than for sales into the U.S.,” Andy Lipow,
president of consultant Lipow Oil Associates LLC, said in Houston.
While
its shipments to the U.S. have plunged, Kuwait faces limits on its
production due to a dispute with Saudi Arabia over shared oil fields
along their border where both nations in the past pumped as much as
500,000 barrels a day. The shared fields in the so-called neutral
zone halted production more than three years ago, though the two
governments are in talks to reactivate them.
Kuwait
Petroleum Corporation’s reduction of crude exports were
"coordinated with U.S. and European clients," the company
said in a statement on Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) website. The
American market is "strategically important" and its supply
contracts are "functional", the state-owned oil producer
said.
Kuwait
has typically exported about 80 percent of its oil to Asia, and those
shipments are increasing with the ramp-up of operations at the Nghi
Son Refinery and Petrochemical Co. in Vietnam. KPC co-owns the plant,
which can process 200,000 barrels a day.
INDIA
TO BUY 9 MILLION BARRELS OF IRANIAN OIL IN NOVEMBER DESPITE US
SANCTIONS: MEDIA
An
Iranian crude oil supertanker anchored off Singapore. IMAGE: REUTERS
India
will buy 9 million barrels of Iranian oil in November despite US
sanctions, Reuters reported on October 5 citing “two industrial
sources”.
“Refiners
have placed November nominations to lift 1.25 million tonnes [about 9
million barrels] of oil from Iran,” Reuters quoted one of the
sources as saying.
According
to the report, Indian Oil Corp will lift 6 million barrels of Iranian
oil and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd 3 million barrels.
The
US sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector are set to be imposed on
November 4. The Trump adminsitration claims that the move is designed
to limit the Iranian economic capabilities and thus its involvement
in conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Furthermore, Washington hopes that
this will force Teheran to request negotiations to reach a new
“pro-US” deal on its missile and nuclear programs.
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