The Guardian: Filthy lucre: Oil, oil – everywhere!
“And what about Rajasthan? Shell had more or less abandoned prospecting there, but oil minnow Cairn Energy made several major finds this year and reckons Rajasthan could be the new Texas”
Stephen Moss
Thursday August 5, 2004
Oil prices are soaring, stock markets are falling, the end of the world is nigh. Purnomo Yusgiantoro, the Indonesian president of Opec, has warned that the cartel will not be able to increase production to bring down prices, the rise in which has been fuelled by uncertainty over the future of Russian oil giant Yukos and attacks on pipelines in Iraq. Better fill up now before we hit $50 a barrel.
The 11 members of Opec – Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela – supply more than 40% of the world’s oil and have more than 75% of all proven reserves. They have us over a … well, they’ve certainly got us where they want us. Yusgiantoro’s statement may even be a bargaining ploy. So the answer, surely, is to start looking beyond Opec.