Saber Rattling over Iran is only Part of the Big Oil Price Story

Dr. Ed Yardeni writes at his blog,

Despite Iran’s saber rattling, the price of oil hasn’t soared. The price of a barrel of Brent has been hovering around $110 since last summer. That’s even after President Barack Obama signed a bill imposing tougher sanctions on Iran at the end of last year. The price didn’t go up after the Iranians publicly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and warned Saudi Arabia not to fill any expected gap in oil demand when the world stops buying Iranian crude. According to a report in today’s Al Arabiya News, Iranian boats with men armed with machine guns on board were recently sent to the waters near the Saudi oil-production areas. Yet the price of oil hasn’t budged much from $110. Spain’s foreign minister said on Monday that Saudi Arabia has promised that it will make up for supplies of oil lost as a result of EU sanctions on Iran, and will do so at the same price.

If it weren’t for all the saber rattling, the price of oil would probably be falling.

Saber rattling over Iran represents only a fragment of the big picture. In other words, the Iran controversy does not capture the major elements of oil politics which drives oil prices.

In examining the political structure of major oil producing economies, we find that there is a watershed level for these welfare states to survive, for instance Saudi Arabia requires some $88 per barrel to buy off their people, Iran some $ 80 per barrel and etc…

In short, anytime oil prices go below these threshold levels, you can expect the “Arab Spring” revolts to make a rip-roarin’ comeback.

So as with the politics of subsidized renewable energy. Aside from environmental concerns, alternative energy requires elevated oil prices to remain an “attractive” alternative.

As this article from Scientific American says,

Today renewable technologies such as wind and solar are close to being competitive with fossil fuels. But we can say good-bye to that prospect if oil prices decline to $60 to $70 a barrel, which could easily happen in a recession, as we witnessed in October.

This means that many entrenched political groups (and their business allies or associates) are dependent on high oil prices.

From the above we come to the following conclusion

-Free markets don’t drive oil prices. Or that oil prices are greatly influenced by the political setting of mainly the oil producers (not on Iran alone).

-To maintain or preserve the current political environment, particularly welfare states of oil producing nations and the promotion of green energy, political measures would need to be resorted to in order to bring about the required oil threshold levels.

Such political measures will possibly include saber rattling (brinkmanship) politics, various market interventions by governments (to restrict supplies) as the Keystone Pipeline Controversy [also remember that 80% of oil reserves are held by governments or National Oil companies, so supply is very much sensitive to actions of political leaders since they control a significant majority of world's reserves], and importantly for global central banks to ramp up on money supply.

As you can see plainly looking at barrels consumed and barrels produced alone is grossly an insufficient way to study and assess oil economics. That’s because politics has an immense influence on how oil prices are being shaped.