Posted by
David C. White on Saturday, March 31, 2007 2:57:53 PM
Hostages for Oil. Or "It's the economy stupid."
"Iranian Official: Sailors May Be Tried" reads the title of the latest update from Drudge. You have to think to yourself - when is the last time that Iranian Islamofacsists took the time to put anyone on trial? While pondering that thought you might start to realize that those British sailors might be in for a long stint on Iranian TV.
I read an OPEC stat that shows Iran produces about 4.047 million barrels of oil per day (link below). The high price per barrel in 2006 was about $78/barrel. That means the Iranian government could pull in around $9.7 billion per month in oil sales. That is of course if they sold everything they produced. But the price of oil fell off to around $50/barrel recently.
That means Ahmadinejad's monthly cashflow dropped by $3.5 billion dollars per month. Ouch - I guess Ahmadinejad can't eat out as much. Every penny counts when you're saving up for nuclear weapons. Speaking of I noticed that Russia recently stopped production of Iran's nuclear sites due to lack of....drum roll please....money. To make matters worse it seems that Condeleza rice has been successful in convincing banks not to finance projects in Iran.
Hmm - well I don't think it should take too many think tanks to figure out why some British sailors were taken by gunpoint. Now what did that do to the price of oil? Oh yes it jumped up by $10/barrel since they were captured. $10/barrel x 4.047 million barrels per day = $40.4 millon dollars PER DAY increase in cash flow. Very nice. That will put another $1.5 billion per month in Ahmadinejad's checking account.
I'm not sure how lines of credit work on your line of business - but an extra $1.5 billion per month should keep the Russians burning the midnight oil in Nuclear plants around Tehran.
Links:
Production in Iran
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/business/2006/October/business_October833.xml§ion=business
Russia stops work
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070313/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpolitics_070313121925
Rice gets banks to hold lending to Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070306/ts_csm/asanctions_1
Price of crude oil
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices;_ylt=Aqfi732h6azmZ2vZzUZtNhqAsnsA