Further to my post of Friday about the falling price of oil: Iran is really starting to sweat the price of oil.
Iran’s Oil Minister said Saturday that it would be “unsuitable” for both producers and consumers for oil to dip below US$100 a barrel.
[…] “A price of US$100 and below is not suitable for anybody, neither oil producers nor oil consumers,” he told reporters. “OPEC members need to respect their output quota to avoid a worsening of the oversupply,” Nozari said.
Nozari said oil producers were pumping around 400,000 barrels per day more oil than the market needed.
“Oversupply could be controlled in the first quarter of 2009, given OPEC’s decision to cut output,” Nozari said.
None of my readers is stupid enough to think he’s really concerned about us consumers, I’m sure. And if any of you are that dumb, well, chew on this for a bit. Iran has to up the price of its budget to import more gas, because in spite of having so much of the world’s crude oil, Iran has almost no refining capabilities of its own.
Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said the sum was needed to import gasoline during the Iranian year that ends on March 20, the Farhang-e Ashti daily reported on Tuesday.
In February the parliament authorized the Oil Ministry to import gasoline and gas oil for the equivalent of $3.2 billion in the fiscal year that started on March 21, 2008.
“Nozari said we will need $6.5 to $7billion for the import of fuel in the second half of the year,” Ali Adianirad, spokesman for parliaments Energy Commission, reported the minister as telling lawmakers on Monday.
It’s actually doubly ironic. Iran, while reaping billions in extra profits due to the high cost of oil, has to spend billions more than intended—to buy back that selfsame crude oil in its refined form, from foreign nations. And even in the face of this, Iran’s oil minister wants oil prices to jump back up. It’s like the Iranians are drug addicts trying to feed an ever-growing addiction.
I think now I want crude oil to stay around $90/barrel. That’s low enough to screw with the Iranian economy, and high enough to still cost them that much more for refined gasoline.
No, not really. $70/bbl is enough to throw the Iranian economy into a state that might actually induce the average Iranian to realize that their country is run by a bunch of religious zealots who also happen to be sitting on billions of dollars stolen from the nation’s oil industry. Check those Swiss bank accounts, bubelahs. I think you might find some with the name “Khameini” attached.
“A price of US$100 and below is not suitable for anybody”
It suits me fine!
I love those Pickens energy plan ads that claim the Iranians are switching to natural gas cars because it’s so much smarter than gasoline…
Wouldn’t it be a shame if an “inductrial accident” destroyed Iran’s one, single, solitary refining plant?
From what I’ve read most Iranians do realize that they are ruled by a bunch of incompetent and corrupt religious fanatics. Unfortunately said fanatics have learned, from the likes of the USSR, how to stay in power even when most people disapprove of you. It’s hard to overthrow an authoritarian/totalitarian government with modern means of repression. However the Iranians had better find a way to do it before the Mullahs provoke a nuclear war that will fry the Iranian people in the crossfire.
What a joke. These nitwits are sitting on an ocean of oil but have to import it because they haven’t developed their economy enough to have a refining capability. Meanwhile, though, they’ve got plenty of money to try to go nuclear.
I’m looking forward to around $50 a barrel…low enough to get gas back around $2 a gallon or a bit less, but high enough to make shale oil worth pursuing so we can get away from OPEC.