Europe

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

Submitted by Gregory Brew via OilPrice.com,

Despite new sanctions by the Trump Administration and an escalating war of words regarding its ballistic missile program, Iran is continuing to push ahead with plans to maintain oil production at around 3.8 million bpd, the level agreed upon at the November OPEC meeting last year. In order to do so, Iran will need to attract billions in new investment, as its current production is based on aging fields and crumbling infrastructure.

Via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Flemish Father Daniël Maes (78) lives in Syria in the sixth-century-old Mar Yakub monastery in the city of Qara, 90 kilometers north of the capital Damascus. Father Daniel has been a witness to the “civil war” and according to him, Western reports on the conflict in Syria are very misleading. In short: “the Americans and their allies want to completely ruin the country.”

 

With the IMF and Germany again at each other's throats over the neverending drama that is Greece, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble repeated the same line he has used since the third Greek bailout from the summer of 2015, and in response to the IMF's demands for a reduction in Greek debt and fiscal surplus, the German ruled out a debt cut for Athens "as a violation of European rules", adding that "the country would have to leave the euro area to do so."

Submitted by Robert Berke via OilPrice.com,

“With Tillerson's confirmation, Exxon just annexed the United States,” --anonymous blogger.

To many observers, the appointment of Tillerson to the helm the State Dept signaled the Administration’s priority of supporting the oil industry, which in recent years has been under severe pressure from OPEC’s campaign of over-production that forced prices down to a post-recession low.