Saudi Arabia

In each of the years 2008, 2009, and 2010, significant worries emerged that Western nations might attack Iran. Here again in 2012, similar concerns are once again at the surface. Why revisit this topic again? Simply because if actions against Iran trigger a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world's daily sea-borne oil passes, oil prices will spike, the world's teetering economy will slump, and the arrival of the next financial emergency will be hastened. Even if the strait remains open but Iran is blocked from being an oil exporter for a period of time, it bears mentioning that Iran is the third largest exporter of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia and Russia. Once again, I am deeply confused as to the timing of the perception of an Iranian threat, right now at this critical moment of economic weakness. The very last thing the world economies need is a vastly increased price for oil, which is precisely what a war with Iran will deliver. Let me back up. The US has already committed acts of war against Iran, though no formal declaration of war has yet been made. At least if Iran had violated US airspace with stealth drones and then signed into law the equivalent of the recent US bill that will freeze any and all financial institutions that deal with Iran out of US financial markets, we could be quite confident that these would be perceived as acts of war against the US by Iran. And rightly so.

Markets are moving positively across the board today following comments from Fitch, dampening speculation that France may be downgraded from its Triple A status. Fitch’s Parker commented that he does not expect to see France downgraded at all throughout 2012. However he added that there are continuing pressures for France from national banks and EFSF liabilities, Parker also reinforced German confidence stating that Germany’s Triple A rating is safe. Markets were also experiencing upwards pressure from strong French manufacturing data performing above expectations and successful Austrian auctions today, tightening the spread between France and Austria on 10-year bunds.

We have now entered the fifth year of this Fourth Turning Crisis. George Washington and his troops were barely holding on at Valley Forge during the fifth year of the American Revolution Fourth Turning. By year five of the Civil War Fourth Turning 700,000 Americans were dead, the South left in ruins, a President assassinated and a military victory attained that felt like defeat. By the fifth year of the Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning, FDR’s New Deal was in place and Adolf Hitler had been democratically elected and was formulating big plans for his Third Reich. The insight from prior Fourth Turnings that applies to 2012 is that things will not improve. They call it a Crisis because the risk of calamity is constant. There is zero percent chance that 2012 will result in a recovery and return to normalcy. Not one of the issues that caused our economic collapse has been solved. The “solutions” implemented since 2008 have exacerbated the problems of debt, civic decay and global disorder. The choices we make as a nation in 2012 will determine the future course of this Fourth Turning. If we fail in our duty, this Fourth Turning could go catastrophically wrong. I pray we choose wisely. Have a great 2012.

Previously we heard Pimco's thoughts on the matter of an Iranian escalation with "Pimco's 4 "Iran Invasion" Oil Price Scenarios: From $140 To "Doomsday"", now it is the turn of SocGen's Michael Wittner to take a more nuanced approach adapting to the times, with an analysis of what happens under two scenarios - 1) a full blown EU embargo (which contrary to what some may think is coming far sooner than generally expected), and the logical aftermath: 2) a complete closure of the Straits. The forecast is as follows: 1) "Scenario 1: EU enacts a full ban on 0.6 Mb/d of imports of Iranian crude. In this scenario, we would expect Brent crude prices to surge into the $125-150 range." 2) "Scenario 2: Iran shuts down the Straits of Hormuz, disrupting 15 Mb/d of crude flows. In this scenario, we would expect Brent prices to spike into the $150-200 range for a limited time period." The consequences of even just scenario 1 is rather dramatic: while the adverse impact on the US economy will be substantial, it would be the debt-funded wealth transfer out of Europe into Saudi Arabia that would be the most notable aftermath. And if there is one thing an already austere Europe will be crippled by, is the price of a gallon of gas entering the double digits. And then there are the considerations of who benefits from an Iranian supply deterioration: because Europe's loss is someone else's gain. And with 1.5 million of the 2.4 Mb/d in output already going to Asia (China, India, Japan and South Korea) it is pretty clear that China will be more than glad to take away all the production that Europe decides it does not need (which would amount to just 0.8 Mb/d anyway).

Those attempting to pressure Iran by increasing "tensions" and thus the price of oil have it precisely backwards. The one sure way to fatally destabilize the Iranian theocracy is to adjust the demand and supply of oil so the price plummets (as it did in December 2008) to $25/barrel, and stays there for at least six months. It has been estimated that the Iranian theocracy cannot fund its bloated bureaucracies, military and its welfare state if oil falls below around $40-$45/barrel. Drop oil to $25/barrel and keep it there, and the Iranian regime will implode, along with the Chavez regime in Venezuela. Saber-rattling actually aids the Iranian regime by artificially injecting a "disruptive war" premium into the price of oil: they can make the same profits from fewer barrels of oil. The way to put them out of business is drop the price of oil and restrict their sales by whatever means are available. They will be selling fewer barrels and getting less than production costs for those barrels. With no income, the regime will face the wrath of a people who have become dependent on the State for their sustenance and subsidized fuel. How do you drop oil to $25/barrel? Easy: stop saber-rattling in the mideast and engineer a massive global recession with a side order of low-level trade war. Though you wouldn't know it from the high price of oil, the world is awash in oil; storage facilities are full, and production has actually increased a bit in North America.

Was Iran born to bluff, or is it really much closer to building a nuclear weapon than anyone really knows? Now that the Islamic Republic has made its intentions clear, one has to assume that it has given away a certain measure of strategic surprise. If it really wants to get the most that it could – militarily – from an attack on tankers moving through Hormuz, it should have never even raised it as a possibility. By discussing it, we figure Iran has given the US “notice” that it might not have had in the event of an attack from the blue. Weren’t the maneuvers in the Straits (by Iran) enough to raise the question without raising alert conditions from the West and from Israel?

Ignore Slovakia: everyone has a price. This is the real news:

• RPT-SAUDI EMBASSY IN U.S. SAYS PLOT IS "DESPICABLE VIOLATION" OF INTERNATIONAL NORMS
• SAUDI OFFICIAL SAYS IRAN PLOT TO ASSASSINATE SAUDI AMBASSADOR "IS NOT GOING TO PASS EASILY"

And logically:

• IRAN REJECTS AS "PRE-FABRICATED SCENARIO" US ACCUSATION ON TWO IRANIANS ALLEGEDLY PLOTTING AGAINST SAUDI ENVOY - STATE TV

Take home: Talk is cheap but Brent here is even cheaper... Either way, it is a win win for Saudi which needs crude to go up in price.

Sometimes we wish the oil minister of former OPEC member Saudi Arabia ("we can supply any amount of oil"), Wikileaks ("Saudi Said To Have Overstated Crude Oil Reserves By 300 Billion Barrels or 40%"), and now Saudi Arabia's very own electricity company would coordinate their story. In a little noticed comment by Abdel Salam al-Yamani, head of the Saudi Electricity Company, in Al Mashka, which so far has been captured by only El Economista magazine, has provided the most recent insider confirmation of peak oil: a very troubling development for those who still naively believe that Saudi Arabia has any marginal boosting capacity, or more importantly, is willing to risk pumping more than possible. Yet, caught between a revolutionary rock and various other cartel nut cases, Saudi will soon be forced to sell as much oil as it can in order to placate it increasingly angry population with ever greater and ever more frequent "gifts" buying the transitory admiration of its people.

Contrary to ongoing wideranging skepticism, Saudi Arabia continues to posture that not only does it have substantial excess capacity, but that it will bring it online any... minute...now. After all, Saudi owes the US a big favor (i.e., lower gas prices) in exchange for America's (or rather its Fifth Fleet) continued presence in Bahrain, which even those living in a cave know has been under a full media blackout to keep the ongoing religious tensions under wraps and keep the Saudi-Bahrain border safe (not to mention the Ghawar oil field). So even as Saudi had promised to hike its output as Libyian production went offline only for it to be discovered that the country had in fact lowered production, so now too the song and dance has hit fever pitch. Reuters reports that "Saudi Arabia is planning to lift oil output sharply in June, whatever policy OPEC adopts this week, in an effort to rein in high fuel prices. Riyadh expects to lift production by more than 500,000 barrels a day in June to its highest for three years, a senior Gulf industry official familiar with Saudi oil policy told Reuters." We can't wait to hear how Saudi's unilateral plan to boost Obama's reelection chances is met by other OPEC members such as Iran, Venezuela, Iraq and Libya. "Worried about the impact on economic growth of
inflated energy costs, Saudi will act alone if necessary to keep a lid
on prices now at $114 a barrel for benchmark Brent crude." Wait, isn't OPEC a "cartel", or a place where unilateral decisions are not allowed, for precisely this reason? Of course, at the end of the day, with recent Wikileaks disclosure that Saudi Arabia admitted it has overstated its reserves by some 300 billion barrels, or 40% of total, this latest ploy to push gasoline prices lower into the summer season will have a half life that is shorter than the SNB's FX intervention attempts.

The strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction has worked so well in the "developed" world (thank you Hank Paulson, Tim Jeethner, Clearinghouse Association et al), it is time to see it in application in the "developing." In an attempt to preempt US doubts about intervening (on the proper side) in the case of escalations in Saudi Arabia (and with the possibility of Yemen becoming a potential Al Qaeda hotbed rising by the hour, this is non-trivial) the former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani told Reuters on Tuesday that "Oil prices could leap to $200 to $300 a barrel if Saudi Arabia is hit by serious political unrest." We are confident he was merely talking in a very, very hypothetical scenario. After all why scaremonger in a world in which everything is under control?

And just when oil was tapering off on hopes that the Middle East supply situation may actually normalize, we get this from The Guardian: "Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain,
after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the
most serious challenge to the island's royal family since demonstrations
began a month ago. The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of a request for support from other members of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council." Pretty mich just as we predicted earlier. And yes, this is huge as Iran will promptly respond, setting off dormant religious tensions with a bang.

And while crude drops on a sudden plunge in oil demand following Japanese refinery shutdowns, supply issues may promptly be rearing their ugly head. Per preliminary Reuters reports at least 200 people protest in eastern Saudi Arabia. "More than 200 protesters took to the streets on Friday in the Saudi Arabian city of Hofuf, two activists told Reuters, responding to a call by online social networks for protests in favour of political reform. Hofuf, a major urban centre in Saudi Arabia's oil rich Eastern Province close to the Ghawar oil field, has seen scattered protests by minority Shi'ites in the last two weeks." This is just the first report of what will likely be a massive protest wave across the region following news that Yemen, Kuwait And Bahrain will all be joining in today's day of rage.

Speculation in oil futures is absolutely rampant.

Two weeks ago Zero Hedge claimed that Saudi Arabian "gestures" to hike crude output were about as hollow as the heads of those suggesting that dealing with surging oil prices involves reducing interest rates even more (which just happen to be at zero already), mostly as a result of the country's recent adoption of "whorism" or its doomed strategy to buy the love of its citizens. The reason is that as UBS' Andy Lees noted, Saudi "will need to ramp up production by about 10% (more capital spending) without prices falling" to fill the suddenly gaping budget hole left from literally throwing $37 billion out of Bernanke's leased helicopter. Yesterday, BusinessWeek's Peter Coy essentially reaffirmed our theory verbatim in the piece "Saudi Arabia Must Keep Pumping Oil to Buy Stability"... needless to say we completely agree with this. Obviously, the bigger issue here is that as WikiLeaks recently suggested, and was reconfirmed by Jim Rogers, Saudi Arabia is simply lying about its excess capacity. Because if Saudi had indeed raised output as many have hoped for, and as Saudi has represented, it would have made up for the funding differential simply by the hike in export volume. Instead, as Reuters reports, Saudi Aramco just hiked prices on oil to customers in Asia and Europe up substantially. This, at least to us, does not appear like the rational action of a player seeking to moderate surging oil prices to avoid further social conflict, and one who can plug offline capacity.

Proving that Saudi Arabia is a fast learner from both China's and America's experience, today Saudi's interior minister announced he is banning all protests, marches and strikes following the world's realization courtesy of the clip posted on Zero Hedge yesterday, showing that not all is well in the kingdom in which protests are banned. Dow Jones reports: "Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has banned all protests, marches and strikes in the kingdom after small protests continued over the weekend in the oil-rich Eastern province towns of al-Ahsa and Qatif, interior ministry said Saturday, according to state-owned channel al Ekhbariyah.  These activities don't conform with the Islamic laws and harm the interests of the nation and the society, the Saudi channel quoted the ministry as saying." What does, however, comply with Islamic law is openly using your plunge protection team to bid up the market: "Saudi stocks rose for the first time in three weeks, rallying the most in more than two years, after the finance minister said the Arab world’s largest economy is benefitting from higher oil prices and in “excellent” shape... The state-run General Organization for Social Insurance also purchased stocks, according to Ajeej Capital’s Fuad Aghabi." Not letting a crisis go to waste, Saudi has quickly learned Econ 101 and is now advising its citizens that America's massive economic contraction is its personal gain. And if that doesn't work, it will just use its pension fund to bid up stocks, as a massively Marked to Myth market is apparently in everyone's interest: just ask the Chairsatan.