With its penchant for executing non-violent criminals, torturing suspects and suppressing women and religious minorities, the Saudis are considered by many to have one of the world’s worst human rights record
If you believe all the recent stories about how Saudi Arabia is losing the price war it started against U.S. tight oil producers, the new Oil Market Report from the International Energy Agency offers a reality check. The Saudis are winning, though they’re paying a heavy price for it.
Since May, Islamic State fighters have been chipping away at the Iraqi government’s control in the city of Baiji, site of one of Iraq’s major oil refineries. Now it seems possible that the empty city and the shuttered refinery could fall.
Nothing has been more corrosive to the stability and modernization of the Arab world, and the Muslim world at large, than the billions and billions of dollars the Saudis have invested since the 1970s into wiping out the pluralism of Islam
In this podcast, we talk about Saudi and OPEC oil, Chinese cars, and domestic natural gas, oil and coal resources. It’s a fascinating discussion with one of the most influential men of our time.
By helping back the Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, who continue to push back Islamic State’s core territory with little outside help, Israel could be helping secure a stronger blow against the group’s central command.
The plunge in global oil prices has eroded an important pillar of Saudi Arabia’s strategy of pumping freely to grab global market share: Demand growth that once looked solid doesn’t look so steady anymore, mainly due to concerns about China.
The oil price was near its lowest in more than a decade, cash reserves were being depleted, emerging markets were in turmoil and Saudi Arabia was beginning to panic. That was 1998, and now Saudi Arabia’s fortunes threaten to turn again.
Iran claims it’s not stockpiling oil in tankers in the Persian Gulf, but no one believes it. Up until recently, energy experts thought Iran’s vessels held 30 million to 40 million barrels of oil.
Iraq’s Kurdish region has begun to sell oil independently of the central government, a move that is exacerbating divisions in the country as it struggles to turn back Islamic State militants.
