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The other "big loser" is Venezuela which has an even higher percentage that Russia for it's budget. Saudi's vote against cutting production had to do with trying to dry up oil that is being fracked in the US and other countries. It does this by making the profit margins fall to zero or negative. This results not in fracking wells shutting down but in putting a halt investing in new ones. Here's a quote from an energy observer just on tar sands (which includes Venezuela and Canada): "There are two primary methods to move oil: by pipeline, which is cheap, and by rail, which is expensive. That cost differential is make-or-break for a tar sands business. The break-even price of tar sands oil is around $100 per barrel if transported by rail, according to Anthony Swift, a staff attorney at NRDC (which publishes *OnEarth*). Tar sands oil sells for $75 on a good day. So producers have to find a savings of $25 per barrel somewhere in order to make it worth the investment." Basically the Canadians are going to lose their shirts over the next 6 months. But that's tar sands. What about fracking? "Here in the U.S., the oil drilling boom is due largely to technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used to force oil from shale formations deep underground. Producing this oil, Rystad figures, costs an average of $62 a barrel." -- http://www.npr.org/2014/11/04/361204786/falling-oil-prices-make-fracking-less-lucrative So the aim of low priced oil benefits the cheaper producers and that's not anywhere in N. America or Russia. And this doesn't really have a thing to do with the now in-disrepute theory of "peak oil" as it shows that the amount of oil (while having an absolute limit by definition) available is *totally* dependent on price. Which is true for every extractive commodity. David _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
