اوبك واعضاؤها يردون على بوش
ايلاف من بيروت: ما كاد موقف الرئيس الاميركي جورج بوش يصل الى ارجاء العالم وهو يدعو الى وقف الادمان الاميركي على نفط الشرق الاوسط حتى اتى رد اوبك والمملكة العربية السعودية، وفي ما يلي وجهة نظر لكاتب في موقع quot;MSN Moneyquot;:
Why OPEC Won't Turn Off the Oil
By Jim Jubak
MSN Money Markets Editor
President Bush had barely finished explaining how his plan to spend less than a billion in new money would end U.S. addiction to Middle Eastern oil before Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC fired back.
If the U.S. reduced its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would be forced, with deep sorrow certainly, to abandon plans to invest billions in developing new supplies of oil.
President Bush's plan to reduce U.S. demand for Middle Eastern oil would result, producers warned, in a global crisis in oil supply.
Yeah, right. As lines in the sand go, this one certainly sounds dramatic, but it's empty posturing. In fact, as full of too-little-too-late promises as President Bush's Jan. 31 State of the Union address was, I'd give the nod to OPEC's performance over the president's for creativity and sheer chutzpah. As empty threats go, this is a doozy.
OPEC's Grand Experiment
As addicted as the U.S. may be to Middle Eastern oil, the oil producers, especially Saudi Arabia, are even more addicted to continued U.S. oil consumption. The Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Nigerians and the rest of OPEC can't afford to stop investing in new production any more than the U.S. can afford to go cold turkey on Middle Eastern oil.
Look at the world from the perspective of the Saudis and the other OPEC oil producers.
To them, 2005 -- the year of $60-to-$70-a-barrel oil -- was a huge and successful experiment. For years, oil producers had kept their target price for oil relatively low: The official OPEC price band for crude oil was $22 to $28 at the time of the organization's Dec. 12 meeting. OPEC has kept the target so low because it worried that high oil prices would cut global demand for oil. OPEC has also worried that high oil prices would spur the development of alternative energy resources, such as Canada's oil sands, and alternative energy technologies such as nuclear and solar.
So OPEC watched with some concern as war in Iraq, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, unrest in Nigeria and turmoil in Russia drove the price above $70 a barrel. And OPEC breathed a sigh of relief when prices above $60 a barrel didn't stop global economic growth in its tracks, didn't lead to crash programs of energy conservation and didn't force OPEC's customers to develop alternative fuel sources.
Now that the world has proven quite able to live with $60-to-$70-a-barrel oil, OPEC is quite happy to go along. The official target band may not move for some time, even though the more aggressive OPEC members, such as Iran and Venezuela, have called for official production cuts and higher official price targets.
So far, OPEC isn't inclined to go on record in favor of higher prices. The organization will be quite happy to blame the price increase on market forces, Chinese demand and Western speculators for as long as possible. But the target price is now clearly above $50 a barrel, no matter what OPEC says officially