The ambassador said Saudi Arabia would like to see the price of oil, which now tops $33 a barrel, to be between $22 and $28 a barrel. http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/19/news/international/election_saudi/index.htm?cnn=yes
Hey, this morning's commentaries were discussing how the Saudi's were trying to influence US politics and have Bush selected again, by manipulating their considerable influence on OPEC, so that gas prices remain relatively low or otherwise favorable to their administration. perhaps this too, is what you were talking about?
Saudi's Prince Banatar said on Larry King last night that Clinton and Carter both ask them to lower oil before the election. John
Here's the Readers Digest version of the Woodward Interview, from Salon.com: Woodward: Saudis agree to rig oil prices In Bob Woodward's appearance on 60 Minutes last night -- transcript here -- he told Mike Wallace that the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was let in on the early war planning for the Iraq invasion, whose family is close to Bush's, and who "enjoys easy access" to the Oval Office, "promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election -- to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day." "Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: 'Theyâre [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.'" Interesting point jficquette made (above); everybody knows that good oil prices make for a strong Ace-in-the-hole in election years for the incumbent... Clinton and Carter ASKED for lower oil prices, did they get them? And if so, what was the cost?
Commodities, by very definition have a market component that is/are represented by both demand and price. Price represents demand as a function of time or more commonly known as timeliness. IOW (in other words), the timely availability of Oil and Oil Service products has as much to do with demand, price and future expectation of demand. When was the last time that you saw a sale on any item that became and was becoming more rare. Almost never, unless the owners / sellers / wholesalers / producers knew that either: 1) the specific commodity in question was going to become obsolete in the next round of product improvements 2) the expectation of demand would peak, plataeu and then quite possibly nose dive, hence not having the same demand quotients as at present. There might just be significant plausibility to this conclusion. Excellent point!
After Greenspan spoke today regarding the need to force other energy sources to begin to replace the demands on OIL and OIL Services, the Saudi(s) came on to the world stage and business news channels and offered the US to build, initially, at least two (2) refineries. These offers were immediately rejected by the US (government) representatives that took to the same airwaves and Congressional testimonies. Interesting stuff, huh?
The price ? Clinton went to war against Irak ... as Saudi wanted. Saudi want Islam everywhere and US Gov is helping them for that ... don't wonder why we have arab terrorism after that...