All readers, I’m sure, are following the rapid drop in world oil prices. This has been a boon to consumers in the USA and elsewhere, but there are negative long-term ramifications. The refusal by OPEC to lower production quotas to boost the price of oil upwards has caused oil prices to drop further, and has created major tensions within the global community of nations. OPEC’s refusal to raise oil production quotas represented a willingness to sacrifice short-term profits in pursuit of a long-term goal: keeping the USA dependent on foreign oil imports. This action is tantamount to some members of OPEC declaring a new “oil war” vs. the USA. OPEC’s members are not unanimous in this action and some members did want to raise production quotas so OPEC’s internal solidarity is also threatened.
The Williston, North Dakota oil boom and new fracking technologies have greatly increased domestic US oil production and lessened the USA’s need for imported oil. Some reports I’ve seen have indicated the USA could be energy-independent by 2020 or somewhat later and become an oil exporter. Saudi Arabia and some OPEC members do not want this to happen, so their effort to lower oil prices are an effort to force the shut-down of domestic American oil production so the USA stays dependent on foreign oil. The three links below offer different perspectives on this story. This effort may succeed, or it could backfire if American fracking technologies become even more efficient in response to the falling oil prices. If so, the OPEC action may actuality hasten American oil independence.
The last link is in small print and readers may have to obtain access to the article at a nominal fee. However, I have the print version of the USA Today article in question and will offer some quotes from it. The article notes that “losers” in the OPEC action also include “Russians, South Americans and Africans, whose economies are dependent on higher oil prices.” It adds that “more than half of officials from OPEC countries” did not support the action by Saudi Arabia and other major OPEC producers.
This OPEC action is surely causing some very heated conversations in global seats of power and will lead to some unlikely alliances to get oil (and other commodity prices) moving upward to former levels. Saudi Arabia and some members of OPEC have managed to unite the interests of Russians, Americans and many other nations against their action.
This OPEC action will cause further stresses in the global marketplaces. It is one more stress that is building up in the current global financial/trade/monetary system called Babylon the Great in Revelation 17-18. This OPEC action further weakens the current global system, and therefore, in my opinion, hastens the eventual fulfillment of the prophecy in Revelation 17-18 that our current “Babylon the Great” system will experience a global collapse at some point in the “latter days” (our modern period of time).
- http://bigstory.ap.org/article/92296494b92e4c9c8d88b11acf26175a/low-oil-prices-send-chills-through-oil-patch
- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/28/1348011/-U-S-Shale-industry-about-to-crash#
- http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
