Tales of the Arabian Knights

Average Saudi daily oil production (left scale), by month, from EIA, JODI, and IEA, together with Baker Hughes oil rig count (right scale). Jan 2000-present. Click to enlarge. Sources: IEA Oil Market Reports, EIA International Petroleum Monthly Table 1.1a, JODI, and Baker Hughes.

This fascinating composite graph comes from the invaluable Oil Drum and was prepared and Posted by Stuart Staniford on Friday December 01, 2006.

He quotes Nawaf Obaid in The Washington Post 28th November 2006.

" ......therefore the Saudi leadership is preparing to substantially revise its Iraq policy. Options now include providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baathist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, who make up the backbone of the insurgency) (Khazraji and pals Ed.) with the same types of assistance -- funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shiite armed groups for years."

An alternative Abdullahmite stratergery might be ...

" ......Finally, King Abdullah may decide to strangle Iranian funding of the militias through oil policy. If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran ...."

Is this threat credible Stuart Staniford asks... Go see his more detailed Saudi production graphs, read about Saudi oil depletion and frenetic oil drilling in the Kingdom (plus 273 well informed comments) .... judge for yourself. A first reading of the "Baker" report from Grey Panthers of the Rock Steady Crew on Capitol Hill whose latest single "Sayonara Baghdad" was released today suggests we are about to live in interesting times.

Get a wood burning stove and buy a forest says Lady Patel from the kitchen.

By the end of this year Saudi foreign assets should be up to approximately a quarter of a trillion dollars in foreign assets by the end of 2006.

PS. If you don't know who the hell Nawaf Obaid is, he is an adjunct fellow with the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS, as well as managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a consultancy based in Riyadh. He is the private security and energy adviser to HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States (previously Ambassador to the Court of St. James, London (see pic)

He is the author of The Oil Kingdom at 100: Petroleum Policymaking in Saudi Arabia (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000) and coauthor, with Anthony Cordesman, of National Security in Saudi Arabia: Threats, Responses, and Challenges (Praeger/CSIS, 2005).

Anthony Cordesmann wrote the highly important "Planning for a Self-Inflicted Wound: US Policy to Reshape a Post-Saddam Iraq" December 31st 2002 about post war Iraq and foretold with terrible accuracy the dilemma that the US now finds themselves in - months before the invasion.

It is left to the reader to judge whether the remarks of Nawaf Obaid in the Washington Post might have possibly passsed across the handily placed desk of the Saudi Ambassador , HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal

Lord Patel thinks it is likely.

Thos interested so far might like to reflect on a telephone interview with Mr Nawaf Obaid phone from Riyadh on August 19, 2006 with SUSIS, the Saudi US Information Service.
in the course of which he said ....

regarding King Abdullah's overseas visits ..

" He looked to the two countries that are going to most need oil from Saudi Arabia in the future, India and especially China......The signal here is pretty clear that the Chinese recognize Saudi Arabia as the main power in the Middle East. For China the most important aspect is that Saudi Arabia is the number one oil producer and exporter and will be into the future. China realizes its booming economy needs oil. So it is logical to establish what will eventually become a strong relationship between the number one provider of oil, Saudi Arabia, and what will become at some point in the near future the number one importer of oil, China. "

And of relations with America...

"This is the problem. There is deep distrust regarding each other and its growing especially after the Lebanon crisis. The fear is that it might sink to new lows, especially in the last two years of the Bush administration."

Read on ....

VERY UNTERESTING NEWS UPDATE ON THE CAREER OF NAWAF OBAID

Reuters reports (6th Dec 2005) that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)had fired Nawaf Obaid and said there was no truth in his Washington Post article of November 29 article, which suggested the kingdom would back Iraq's Muslim Sunnis in the event of a wider sectarian conflict. They quote the state Saudi Press Agency last week who quoted an "official source" .

Obaid stressed in the article that the views were his own and not those of the Saudi government.

"We felt that we could add more credibility to his claims as an independent contractor by terminating our consultancy agreement with him," Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, told the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.

The article said the kingdom would intervene with funding and weaponry to prevent Shi'ite militias from attacking Iraq's Sunnis and suggested Saudi Arabia could bring down world oil prices to squeeze Shi'ite power.

Make of that what you will.

See also Reuters News Alert of Prince Turki al-Faisal's response to the Baker report...""The U.S. must underline its support for the Maliki government because there is no other game in town."