Russia Overtakes S. Arabia In Crude Production

[bemildred]

Russia is extracting more oil than Saudi Arabia, making it the biggest producer of “black gold“ in the world, figures show.
The statistics, from the oil cartel OPEC, reflect a trend that has seen the Russians periodically surpass the Saudis as the world’s biggest oil producers on and off since 2002.
These latest figures are being hailed in Russia as evidence that such periodic production spikes are not one-offs though and that Moscow really does have a right to lay claim to the No 1 spot.
According to OPEC, Russia extracted 9.236 million barrels of oil a day in June, 46,000 more than Saudi Arabia, Nzherlad.com said.
The statistics also showed that Russian production in the first half of this year increased to 235.8 million tons, a year-on-year improvement of 2.3 percent.
Traditionally, Saudi Arabia has been regarded as the world’s undisputed primary source of oil and Russia has had to settle for second place.
But in recent years Russia has renationalized and modernized much of its industry and that policy now appears to be paying off.
Even Russian analysts concede that Moscow’s cause is helped by the fact that Saudi Arabia is subject to OPEC output restrictions.

Iran-Daily

[Deja Q]

1. So why aren't we keen on invading Russia?

(yet?)

:D

[Skink]

2. Bush is afraid of Putin.

[bemildred]

3. Remember Yukos?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukos

[HereSince1628]

4. The British and the US did that Russian invasion thing back in the 20's

in order to punish them for pulling out of WWI. It was a disaster for us.

[cliss]

5. The emerging BIG players on the world scale.

The dynamics of world power are going through a metamorphosis. The old power structure is changing, and the U.S. is desperately trying to hang on.

But it's too late. The shift has already happened, it's been underway since around 2002. The U.S. will find itself more and more in a position of declining power.

The sources of power will be on who has the oil. It will be:
Russia
Venezuela
Iran
and those that back them:
China
India

Of course, the policy makers have known about this. They knew we were headed for a period of massive decline. They wanted to slow down the decline so that we would not go over a cliff.

The PNAC is all about making one last-ditch grab for power. They also knew it was a WILD GAMBLE and the odds were not good for us to prevail. But they felt they had no choice. THAT's why we went into Iraq and made a last-ditch attempt to hang on to the oil.

They were also aware that there would be an insurgency, and chances are we would not be able to hang on to the oil because of the resentment against us.

Just in case anyone wonders why we did it. It wasn't insanity, it wasn't the war against terror. It was desperation.