Russia's Oil Woes

It seems Russia's not quite as flush with oil as they hoped.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7348463.stm
Many of their oilfields are becoming exhausted, and they are finding it difficult to find investors to tap new oilfields further afield. All that capital flight can't have helped. There are problems keeping abreast of demand and with accessing existing supplies.

This is bad because Russia ia a major source of oil for us in Europe, despite all out efforts to diversify.

It is good because Russia will be far less inclined to play politics with their oil trade. While Putin has insisted that Europe is vital to their trade, he is more than capable of tinkering with the pipes for his own ends. This will become less of a threat. Also, Russia's oil industry needs funds and Europe has been the traditional investor over there. If he wants our investment he'll have to keep us sweet. Recently the EU signed a deal with Turkmenistan, looking to buy some of their oil. While unimportant immediately (we have no way of actually getting their oil) it will be a further reminder to Russia not to take us for granted.

Venezuela
In other oil news, Venezuela is increasing taxes on foreign oil companies in an attempt to further control their monies. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7349986.stm

Meanwhile the Brazilians are getting excited -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/15/brazil.oil

the words "surprise" and "scepticism" occur in the article though!

Atticus wrote:

Meanwhile the Brazilians are getting excited -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/15/brazil.oil

the words "surprise" and "scepticism" occur in the article though!

ummm. The problem with their first field (Tupi) is that it was way out to sea, will take 10 years to exploit (deep water), and contains 8bn barrels, they think.... which seems to be being trumpeted as a big deal, but since we use 87.2 million barrels a day on the planet, I think this field would last us about 100 days of use. By the same logic, a 33bn barrel field would therefore last us just over 400 days. So the Brazilians buy us almost 2 years.....naaah, we're still screwed!!

I was reading the oil thread on p.ie today and it seems that a few of them believe that oil will reach €200 a barrel before the end of next year...

Very optimistic - could be the end of this summer.

Some good links on that thread
http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=34260