[A-List] Mark on opec et al

[Andre Gunder Frank <franka@xxxxxxx>]

""Saudi''Arabia powder keg, yes, but
I disgree strongly with Mark in re quote # 1 below and have serious
reservations in re # 2 and # 3. am puzzled by the whole lot.

# 3 first. It seems to me this is in no way an either/or matter, but a
both one. Any other source of oil become an important altrernative if any
one/two.. other/s is/are cut off or exhausted.
So pushing for Casp & CA oil is an important fall back strategy in case
''Middle Eastern"" [ i dont like thius Eurocentric neocolonialist term,
the colonialist one was NEAR, and i never use them in public] oil becomes
a problem . problematic it is already. granted that it will take time to
get SOME MORE CA oil on stream. Al the more reason to start now.

but this raises other issues:
a. no one wants to invest in getting oil when its price is low - as it was
much of the time since the breakup of the SU. [never mind the
in principle rationality of looking far down the pipeline road, if your
OWN cash/flow  is involved].
b. Russia and Iran. get them on board. for both their oil [Rus still the
world's largest, not S Arab!] and for their transit possibilities.
The Russians already have pipelines in place and they can be
sup/comp-lemented faster than starting from scratch elsewhere.
And Iran- haas been pumping for ''the swap'' - it exports more from its
gulf fields in exchange for using some oil & gas piped into its Theran etc
populatioin/productin centers in the Irani  north.

now Mark's # 1 below


 # 1 .In short, right now it looks as though the West has lost the latest
oil-war even before it has really begun. Meanwhile the capitalist world
economy has gone into recession. If the US has lost the latest round in
its thirty-year struggle with Opec, the prospects for economic recovery
are dire.

a. there has NEVER been a west/opec struggle. even at the time of the
first 1973  ''oil shock'' our ever friend/ly Kissinger did what he
could to get the oil price HIGH, not low! and
the ''oil shock'' was then and has till till now been completely
WRONGLY said to hav e been the cause or even the spark for the 73-75
recession -- nor the 79 one for the 79-82 recess, that started in june
and the real price hike in dec 79, both of which served mostly to
recupoerate real vale of dollar-=priced oil when the $ had declined
 [there are a lot of things i dunno, including a lot that i wrote/write
about - but that IS soemthing I DO KNOW about, and wrote it down in the
mid 70s and published among others in my 1980 CRISIS books]
. to summarize, there was no Wedst-OPEC battle
b. opec never had the slightest bit of power, bargaining or otherwise.
one becauss of bringing altern ative oil sources on stream that soon
outproduced/sold and underpriced [that  is had no quota restrictions]
in re opec - not accidental that Mexico, Indonesia etc did not join,
never mind the north sea], as well as reducing the oil-input/production-
output and alos throughput ratios

two because it is the state or cycle phase of the world econ that is
deecisive. in a recessioon , opec has no bargaining power at all, and the
rest of the time it cant control its own member whpo want to jump quotas.
even Saudi manipulation of supplies has little effect.
that leads to # 2 below

Mark # 2 In the past two years, Opec has regained its control over the
market, something it has been trying to reestablish since the 1980s. The
reason is simple: world oil production is at or near the peak, and many
non-Opec provinces (N America, Russia, North Sea, Mexico, Nigeria, China)
have entered a phase of dramatic production declines. If Opec (meaning the
Gulf) was not able to get monopoly control of the market, bin Laden would
not be the menace he is, and it's that simple. As long as the US was able
to manipulate oil prices, everything was fine.

 opec HAS NO market control, never did, not likely to ever get it/any.
even if the pla ces you mention were tru. some are . others are not.
Russia pumped & exported muich more before and has b een in the dumps
because the UDS has shoved the whole conntry down the rat hole and because
oil prices were low, so no incnetive to overcome that problem.
China productin is on the way up, not down. although i would grtant you
thsat china consumption is going up faster than own production, hence
interest in Khazak oil.Siberian oil is virtually untapped.south china sea
also.

it seems to me that even these two items # 1 and #2 pull quite a lot of
rug out from under Mark's argument.

If the US wanted to get ObL, the pospects would be 1,000 better with an
israeli style commando without war , than with and B-52s cum blockbusters.
even getting rid of Taliban, now that it has turned out not to be able to
do the job it was meant to do, could be more efffectivfely and cheaper
donw in other ways/s. the US/Rus earlier agreement via t he UN to go get
ObL was 99 % excuse to let the US go after CA.

The Gulf and east mediterranean regiemes ARE a perhaps THE problem,
but war in Afghanistan does not ameliorate but substantially enhances the
problem. plus threatening to p[ush pakistan over the brink as well - shows
how irresponsible, since that is pitting fundamentalists with CA
interestsand Kashmir interests/weapon there against India, both with the
bomb.

so???
no cheers
Gunder
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                    ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK
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