In November of 2014, we announced the quiet death of the petrodollar.
The system which underwrote decades of dollar dominance and kept a perpetual bid under USD assets met an untimely demise when the Saudis moved to bankrupt the US shale complex by deliberately suppressing oil prices.
The implications, we said, would be far-reaching.
Venezuela's crude oil basket price collapsed to as low as $20.20 yesterday, according to the socialist utopia's President Maduro. Having already "passed the point of no return," Maduro rages that OPEC producers appear to be "finally waking up" to what they have unleashed noting that, according to him, Russia's Putin has agreed to "work on oil price issues."
More jawboning and hope...
With crude soaring despite DOE showing inventories surging, production up fgor the 7th week in a row, and demand plummeting, Baker Hughes oil rig count dropped 5 more to 510 this week - the lowest since April 2010 (after a de minimus 1 rig drop last week). Crude had ripped higher into this print but was thoroughly unimpressed in its unchangedness.
Submitted by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,
Despite the reformers endless efforts to encircle mankind, some persist beyond the broad extent of their casted net. In the backwaters of the new Republic, for instance, the distant rumble and flicker of Saturday night hootenannies still befall yonder the mighty oak groves.
Having laid off 10,000 employees (and boosted his share buyback program by $10 billion - because that has worked out so well in the past), it appears Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard unleashes some very uncomfortable truthiness on his audience this morning during the earnings call... "For many of our customers, available cash and annual budgets were exhausted well before the halfway point for the fourth quarter... as pricing levels for frackers has dropped into unsustainable territory."