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-----Oil price could triple to $100 per barrel
GOTCHA by Jarius Bondoc
Publish Date: [Saturday, September 28, 2002]

A US attack to dislodge Iraq President Saddam Hussein could more than triple oil prices to $100 per barrel. Industries worldwide would fizzle to a halt. Pump prices in RP will hit P50 per liter, and middle-class homes might drop LPG for firewood to cook.

It is for this grim eventuality that ASEAN members, talking on the side in Osaka’s bigger meeting last week of oil producers and users, tabled the idea of stockpiling in Subic or Thailand. Manila is also asking Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer at 8.8 million barrels per day, if it can loan some of its excess supply. And Malacañang is calling on citizens to make a habit of fuel conservation.

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister during the shock of the ’70s, has been warning about a price rocket since US President George W. Bush first talked of war in August. He does not dispute Bush’s reasons in grabbing for Saddam’s throat: links to al-Qaida terrorists, genocide of Kurds, secret manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. A director of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Yamani fears an Iraqi counterstrike on Saudi and Kuwait oilfields, pipelines and ports. The supply disruption is not far-fetched. Saddam, while accepting the idea of new UN weapons inspectors, is egging fellow Arabs to hit US targets in case Iraq is invaded.

Western analysts are not as panicky as Yamani. But their forecasts are as bleak. The Boston Consulting Group charts peacetime prices of oil in recent decades at $22-24 per barrel in today’s money. But it shoots to over $50 in wartime. During the 1990 Gulf War prices broke past $40 per barrel. Unfounded reports in early September of a US and British pre-emptive air strike on Iraqi military bases sent prices soaring above $30.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates, too, computes war jitters to account for price spikes of $3-5 per barrel. But it does not share Yamani’s scenario of a world economy flopping on its face. Oilfields could be set on fire as in the Gulf War. Refineries and ports could be fouled by radioactive, biological or chemical agents. But it would be impossible even for a determined Saddam to shut down all of Middle East’s oil. Saudi Arabia has plenty of spare capacity (three million barrels a day) and alternative export routes. Busted pipelines can be patched up in a jiffy. Moreover, the world’s industrial powers hold about 13 million barrels in strategic stockpiles, more than double since the 1970s oil crunch.

Then again, half of such stockpiles can be used up in three months, and dry up in six. From logistic indications, Bush intends a short war. But anything can happen. Saddam could hold out far longer than US war planners calculate. He enjoys wide military and civilian support, and had amassed $2 billion in kickbacks (25¢ a barrel) from Russian middlemen for smuggling oil through "tanker caravans" in the Gulf. A prolonged war might yet prove Yamani’s forecast accurate.

World watchers believe that Bush has taken into account the risk of pushing oil prices to $100 a barrel. They also suspect he’s playing a gambit for the lowest prices of crude the world had seen in the last century. That is, if he wins the war.

Iraq holds the world’s second biggest oil reserve at 113 billion barrels, next only to Saudi Arabia’s 262 billion. But while Saudi mines and sells 8.8 million barrels a day, Iraq is limited to 2.4 million. The UN supervises Iraq’s average trade of 1.7 million barrels a day, a punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1998 expulsion of weapons inspectors. Iraq sells about 400,000 barrels more through Turkey, Jordan and Syria. Saddam, however, raises or drops production on whim. In a good mood, he pushes it to the limit. But when he dreams of leading an oil embargo on the West, he simply shuts the faucets – to the chagrin of OPEC partners. Early this year, Saddam cranked up only 1.2 million barrels per day. Since August, it’s been down to 370,000 barrels, Saddam’s way of getting even with Israel’s heightened actions in Palestine.

OPEC members, who take pains to set production quotas and thus keep prices at $26-28 per barrel, are hard put to fill up the supply gap. They do enjoy the extra hundreds of millions of dollars from war jitters, but Gulf producers also know that long spells of high prices would slow down the world economy and consequently slash oil purchases. Still, the world wants OPEC to bring prices back down to $22-24 per barrel, possibly even to the $19 that everyone enjoyed before the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Saudi Arabia, since it makes up for half of Gulf production, is adamantly for the present $26-28 per barrel.

European analysts say that Bush aims to break Saudi domination of OPEC by freeing Iraq’s oilfields. If Bush is able to replace Saddam with someone sympathetic to the West, Iraqi oil will flow to the world. Despite rusting oil wells from years of corrupt management by Saddam’s relatives and pals, Iraq can produce an additional 3.5 million barrels per day from its 2.4-million limit. A new government could entice foreign investments in higher production. The example was proven recently by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s reserve of 49 billion barrels is less than half of Iraq’s 113 billion, yet it yields 7.1 million barrels a day compared to Iraq’s potential of 5.9 million. Of course, Putin was able to double his yield largely from Bush’s commitment to buy half of the supply. Still, investors would prefer to improve existing oilfields than explore new sources. It costs a dollar or two per barrel to expand a field, but $10-12 to drill in seabeds or Arctic ice.

Arguably, a Middle East without Saddam could spell a steep supply increase to bring prices down to $15-18 per barrel. This so entices Bush, analysts say, because he needs to refuel a US economy that has slunk to recession. Japan, too, which buys most of its oil from Kuwait, would benefit from low prices that could recharge its factories after a dozen years of depression.

All this is iffy. Yet the US goal of low oil prices is being planned at the cost of war. Anti-imperialists thus rant that Bush might not really be aiming for a terrorist-free, nuke-reduced world, but to feed the vampirish US war economy with blood. A war would mean large US government orders for weapons and ammunition, vehicles and uniforms, food and cigarettes. Billions of dollars poured into factories would improve revenues and fire up spending.

There are other arguments against war. Russia and China, two of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, are not sold on the idea of toppling Saddam. A free-flow of Iraqi oil would affect their own production and pull down their prices.

Saudi Arabia, too, while generally supportive of US policy, is wary of war. In the face of Iraqi competition in a post-Saddam scenario, Saudi can easily increase its production to 10 or 11 million barrels a day to offset lost revenues from lower prices. But the problem is more political than petrol. Both Saudi democrats and religious radicals are calling for the expulsion of US military bases on Arab soil. War against Iraq would magnify all the more the issue and further shake the hold on power of the Royal House of Saud. Weak oil exports could complicate matters.

But war is imminent. Bush sounds determined to take out Saddam, despite growing opposition from Congress and admonitions from NATO allies. For his part, Saddam is resisting new UN rules on weapons checks, insisting on the old ones in which he can screen inspectors and approve their dispatches. If so, the world must brace itself for the consequences of oil prices shooting up to $50 or $100 a barrel. For poor countries like RP, though, the options are so limited. * * *
Catch Sapol ni Jarius Bondoc, Saturdays, 8 a.m., on DWIZ (882-AM). * * *
You can e-mail comments to jariusbondoc@workmail.com

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