One day after Saudi Arabia raised the prospect that Wednesday's OPEC summit in Vienna may conclude without a deal (which also was spun as optimistic as the market would still revert to "equilibrium", however it was unclear at what price), OPEC members tried on Monday to rescue a deal to limit oil output as tensions grew among the producer group and non-OPEC member Russia.
Submitted by Gregory R. Copley via OilPrice.com,
US President-elect Donald J. Trump in many ways faces the most circumscribed strategic options of any modern U.S. President entering office. Not only has the global context changed — and will change rapidly even further — so also has the United States’ abilities, tools, and resources to assert itself on the world stage.
On Friday, after reading the latest shift in the ever-changing, always fluid OPEC narrative, according to which Saudi Arabia now demands Iranian oil production cuts contrary to the agreement reached at the end of September in Algiers, in which Iran was granted an exemption from the upcoming supply cut negotiation in Vienna on November 30, we were confused:
Wait so the Saudis demand Iran cuts production now after explicitly granting Iran an exemption in Algiers?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 25, 2016
Submitted by Rakesh Upadhyay via OilPrice.com,
Traditional rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, continue to fight to prove their supremacy in OPEC. Neither gives up an opportunity to hurt the other, whenever and wherever they can, and oil seems to be their favourite playground.
With Saudi Arabia scuttling any chances of a production freeze in Doha in April, Iran has followed suit by thwarting attempts by Saudi Arabia to introduce a production ceiling on OPEC production in Thursday’s meeting held in Vienna.
Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
This is a guest post, sent to me this week, by reader Craig Cantoni, a former military officer whose father is in a veteran’s cemetery.
Cantoni presents a historical picture on many levels as to what has happened and is still going on in the Middle East.
How Americans Came to Die in the Middle East by Craig Cantoni