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Page added on November 17, 2016
No Saudi Oil Says Trump, Saudi Arabia Fires Back
Saudi Minister of Energy, Industrial and Mineral Resources Khalid al-Falih arrives for the opening ceremony of the Qatari and Saudi Economic Forum on November 6, 2016 in Riyadh. (Photo FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images)
Imagine making the world’s largest oil exporter sweat it out, even before you take office. That’s exactly what Donald Trump is doing. The new president-elect has said repeatedly that the U.S. needs to block all oil imports from Saudi Arabia.
During his campaign Trump vowed to secure U.S. energy independence from “our foes and the oil cartels,” while also creating “complete American energy independence.”
However, on Wednesday Saudi Arabia’s oil minister fired back. Khalid Al-Falih, also the chairman of Aramco, said in an interview on Wednesday that “at his heart President-elect trump will see the benefits [of Saudi oil imports] and I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy.”
“The U.S. is sort of the flag-bearer for capitalism and free markets,” Al-Falih added. “The U.S. continues to be a very important part of a global industry that is interconnected, that is dealing with a fungible commodity which is crude oil. So having equalization through free trade is very healthy for oil,” he said.
The Saudi oil minister added that Saudis are waiting for Trump’s presidency, as his presidential campaign had amounted to “50,000 feet announcements” that may change.
Despite the U.S. shale oil boom and the U.S. slot as the third largest global crude oil producer, the country still relies heavily on Saudi crude imports. Saudi Arabia is the country’s largest Middle Eastern oil supplier with a 11% market share and has also invested heavily in U.S. downstream assets (refineries) to help lock in that supply. Around 31% of all U.S. oil imports are from OPEC members, while Canadian oil imports represent a 41% share.
Saudi Arabia for its part, has been hit particularly hard from the more than two-year roil in oil markets. As oil prices have tanked from $115/barrel in mid-summer 2014 to now hovering in the mid $40s range, Saudi Arabia has run record budget deficits of $98 billion last year and $87 billion forecasted for this year. Foreign reserves are also dwindling as the central bank props up the economy.
The downturn in oil prices and lost oil revenue is also forcing Riyadh to put in place politically unpopular austerity measures, as well as raising $17.5 billion in international bond sales last month, with little end in sight until OPEC and major non-OPEC oil producers can agree on a substantive and lasting oil production cut.
24 Comments on "No Saudi Oil Says Trump, Saudi Arabia Fires Back"
Dredd on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 6:16 am
“You have come a long way baby …”
“Moreover, recently declassified documents show that Saudi Arabia made secret oil shipments to the US military, to ensure that its operations in Vietnam would not be compromised” (The Peak of The Oil Lies – 5).
makati1 on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 6:20 am
The Saudis see the end fast approaching. Threats will not make a difference. Their holdings of USTs is small compared to that of China or Japan. And the other oil producers would be happy to take that 11% share.
onlooker on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 7:05 am
Yep and they have enemies all around them and from within The question is for how long can or will the US support and protect them
Dredd on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 7:14 am
The oil glut Trumps right ?
Who needs the King’s oil … we got a glut anyway right ?
rockman on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 8:18 am
“I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy.” The hell it will! LOL. Certainly not us oil producers. Anything the president-elect does to increase oil prices would be great. He will never make the US “energy (more correctly import) independent”. But that isn’t the job of the US oil patch.
Nothing personal, ya know. Just business. LOL.
penury on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 11:21 am
Apparently the U.S. has decie3ded that supporting the petro dollar does not require SA now. Either the move away from the petro dollar is having an effect, or the U.S. has determined that SA support is no longer welcome. I for one will be interested in the reaction.
joe on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 12:23 pm
The thing is that as diversity in the market is whats needed. The greatest potential for a paradigm shift would be to make Iran/Iraq the main foreign supplier. Britain tried this strategy after ww2, but they got undermined by Saudi/US and the mistake in not securing Saudis oil feilds for British oil. Now though America plays the role of ailing emipire and now it simply must secure all competitors or face the prospect of relying on self sufficiency which is fine unless somthing goes stategically wrong and next thing you know you are Canada or Venezuela. The fact is that the US is such an important Saudi customer that they dont even seriously consider losing the US, they dont really believe they will ever stop selling oil to America because they know that the damage to the petro-dollar system would be too great, unless of course the US could remake that system with other partners. So far all we can say about Trump is that he may be the Flip-Flopper in Chief.
george on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 1:14 pm
THE ZANTI MISFITS
Kenz300 on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 2:36 pm
Energy independence will come with wind and solar power for electricity generation and electric vehicles for energy consumption.
If you want to end reliance on OPEC OIL then support the transition to electric vehicles.
Sissyfuss on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 4:04 pm
This certainly could be the straw that stirs the camels’ hump. Or something like that.
HARM on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 4:11 pm
If Trump keeps on insulting those America-hating terror-sponsors Saudis, even *I* might start supporting him.
Anonymous on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 7:11 pm
LoL, someone clearly, the deep state hasn’t had the ‘talk’ with the donald yet and explained to him that the ‘sauds’ are key amerikan asset. For reasons there is no need to re-state here. While getting rid of the sauds would in fact, be a good policy, dont get me wrong, ‘saudi’ Arabia is a key uS colony. The uS will only tell cut the ‘sauds’ loose once they have drained all the oil out of the desert. As there is still oil left to drain, the ‘sauds’ aren’t going anywhere, no matter what the trump declares.
Its just like his ill-considered plan to tell ‘Nato’ to shove off as well. Again, like the sauds here, NATO is a key instrument of uS control and imperialism. That is just as off the agenda as telling the sauds to pound sand. Trump hasnt grasped (yet), that the house of ‘saud’s are satraps in crime in maintaining amerikan hegemony. So expect a lot of hot air like this from the trump house, but BAU on the ground.
Cloggie on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 3:49 am
Trump is a real “America Firster”. Like luminaries as Hitler did to Germany between 1933-1939 (“making Germany great again” and boy he did), Trump tries to make America completely autarkic on all fronts: get rid of Saudi oil, get rid of NATO, making mutual beneficial trade deals with China, ending useless quarrels with Russia, putting Americans to work, etc..
The American people are going to love him for it.
No more NWO. No more Anglo-Zionist attempts to use America as a tool to set up a world wide empire for the benefit of the kosher run US deep state. Der Starke ist am besten allein attitude.
There can’t be a shred of doubt who is Trump’s example. America just turned somewhat national-socialist-without-the-swastika.
http://tinyurl.com/j3erd5a
Better that than the Soros-SJW-BLM gulag.
The largest ethnic group just took over America from the Anglo-Zionists. America will be a better place for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmR7VD3pqv0
America’s commies know they lost:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88UV4yJ-AdI
The Weimar Republic was little more than a fight between the kosher run communist party and nationalists about who would run Germany. The latter won in 1933.
Weimerica lasted from ca. 1912 (capture FED, America’s purse) until 2016 (Americans can be a little slow at times).
And remember folks: everything you think you know about the first half of the 20th century is an Anglo-Zionist Hollywood lie.
Cloud9 on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 7:28 am
There is a distinct possibility that the deep state has already had numerous talks with Trump. It is entirely possible that he has already been informed of rates of depletion and the impending systemic collapse that has been predicted by Short and others. If the Deagal forecast is legitimate, we have an inside look at why the deep state has been preparing for the zombie apocalypse. It is also telling that the Department of Homeland Security has been telling the general population to make similar preparations for quite some time. With that in mind, Trump may be planning to rescue the oil majors the same way that banks were rescued in 08. Part of that plan may include protection from cheap imports. I would not be surprised if Trump’s infrastructure plan focused on rebuilding rail roads.
Boat on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 7:46 am
Cloud,
If the hills group predictions are right the US won’t have time to spend 1/2 trillion on roads and bridges. What would be the point if Trump believed in a collapse.
Goat1001 on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 8:33 am
The Saudis attacked the World Trade Center in 2001! It’s about time to cut ties with that terrorist country and pull everything out including that extensive military base!
Cloggie on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 9:22 am
The Saudis attacked the World Trade Center in 2001!
Do you have any proof for that assertion? There was never a trial. There was never an independent investigation.
The real culprits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aOhnK01wMY
GregT on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 10:18 am
@Boat,
“If the hills group predictions are right the US won’t have time to spend 1/2 trillion on roads and bridges.”
And what prediction exactly, would that be Kevin? Please do tell.
Cloud9.5 on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 10:37 am
Collapse is not the end. You have to work through the chaos find the new normal and begin again. Anybody who has ever failed in business has been through this.
Apneaman on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 11:57 am
Old dutch, your homo erotic fantasy daddy Trump has not done anything – NOTHING. See he’s not actually in office yet. Other than a bunch of typical American hair on fire yaking from most of the country. Not one thing is different than the day before the election. Unless you have evidence of these formerly unemployed blue collar Trump supporters at their shiny new jobs then you might want to put it back in your pants for now.
Cloud9 on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 3:08 pm
Apne, to reverse a trend, you have to come to a momentary dead stop. A lot of backroom players were working the existing trend to their advantage. There inside connections just got ousted. Their net worth just took a serious hit. What do you suppose Hillary and Bill are now going to be able to charge for a speaking engagement? I suspect a lot less.
To imagine those jobs are going to spring up like mushrooms overnight is magical thinking. Wealth evaporation is very deflationary. I have no doubt that the Fed will be ordered to backstop the oil sector. If you push Saudi Arabia out of the equation that creates more demand for our local product. That should help bolster price. Gas just dropped again below two dollars in my area. While I am happy to see it, it is an indication that we are all getting poorer.
Cloggie on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 4:39 am
Trump has not done anything – NOTHING. See he’s not actually in office yet.
Do I hear a llama sh*tting?
Meanwhile Trump continuous to create facts. Where Ron Paul with his high-pitched voiced demand for years that the Fed needed to be audited, Trump simply takes the joint over:
http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/trump-prepares-to-takeover-fed/
This is probably a first step to drain the swamp and take the Fed away from the private bankster mob and make a real federal institution out of it: the purse of the American people rather than that of the youknowwhose. The creation of the Fed in 1912 was the first step in a long process of taking over America by the financial mob.
There has been one hero before in American history who attempted to do the same (as well as blocking Israel from acquiring nukes) and that was Hitler-admirer JFK:
http://tinyurl.com/p4ymhj8
We all know how that ended. And you don’t have to dig very deep to figure out who was behind that hit if you listen to the former mistress of kosher Texan veep LBJ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79lOKs0Kr_Y
And if you want to know who pulled the trigger you are well advised to begin your search here:
Leah Rabin wrote in her memoirs Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy:
Just as we walked in the door of our home, I picked up the phone to hear shocking news: John F. Kennedy was dead. To have just returned from the United States and for Yitzhak to have been in Dallas just hours before — albeit as mere coincidence;
How many ‘coincidental’ Mossad men, apart from Yitzhak Rabin, were there in Dallas in 1963? Jack Rubinstein killing the patsy Oswald was enough to successfully cover up the truth until today, although most Americans correctly think that the official story is a lie. The threat of a hit from the cesspool that is NE-United States, will loom over Trump’s head until the moment he will leave office, vertically or horizontally.
Meanwhile in Europe right-wing circles can’t believe their luck with Trump. According to Marine le Pen, the Trump presidency offers the opportunity to “create a new world”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/13/marine-le-pen-donald-trump-has-shown-how-we-can-build-a-new-worl/
Likewise in Germany they can’t believe their luck. AFD member of European Parliament Beatrix von Storch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixL-fAKTPIM
“Trump is a big chance for Europe”
Von Storch reiterates all the standpoints of the European right: halting the invasion from the Global South, restoration of the European family, good relations with Russia (and America).
Like happened before in Russia and now in the US, the European right wants to take over from the loony left as well.
Cloggie on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 4:51 am
News just in: German chancellorette Angela Merkel announced a press conference for Sunday-night to make an important announcement. Most pundits expect that she will tell that she will run for a fourth time in next year’s election and perhaps she will.
But the enormous pressure from the protesting German street, as well as Trump becoming US president, does open up the possibility that she resigns. This year was full of surprises anyway.
Boat on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 5:23 am
Clog,
Relax a few months then wait for the fire works. Trump might ruin your day. He might chase Isis into any nation and just grab the oil and declare it’s ownership as payment. Thinking Iran and Lybia, all we need for independence.