Archive - Mar 2, 2011 - Story

With US, and now Canadian and Korean warships all converging on Libya, the developed world is certainly sending Tripoli a very loud and clear message. And with Libyan defense forces obviously a joke in comparison to the offensive being slowly mounted against it, one wonders what if any defense tactic the Northern Africa country has. The answer: oil. From Reuters: "Libya hopes tensions with Western countries over a popular revolt in the country do not reach the stage where the Tripoli government considers oil as a political weapon, a top oil official said on Wednesday. Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation,
also told Reuters in an interview that Libya's troubles had
created the country's worst energy crisis in decades and Libyan
supply disruptions to world markets could push oil above $130 a
barrel in the next month if troubles persist." Yet as Saudi Arabia has used every chance to make it all too public, the kingdom supposedly has more than enough capacity to pick up the slack, should war break out and Libya go ahead and set fire to its wells. So it is surprising that the Arab League roundly rejected "foreign intervention" in Libya, putting US offensive forces in a tight bind, should it decided to proceed with an attack.

Despite what irrelevant US stock futures indicate, just like yesterday the true appreciation of risk comes from the Gulf region, where following yesterday's 7% rout in the Saudi index, today the drubbing continues. And for those who are confused why the Egyptian stock market continues to be closed, just take one look at what is happening with the Saudi Tadawul Index. Further confirming that Saudi Arabia is coming unglued are Saudi CDS which as we predicted a month ago, are well on their way to 200 and onward, last printing at 145, the widest they have been since July 2009.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 02/03/11