Greasing the Shaft | Michael Kindt
What most people don’t know about oil is that since about 2006, there
has been a tectonic, global shift in the market. Previously, OPEC and
its most important member, Saudi Arabia, were top dogs. They set prices,
production levels. Everybody ate from their hands.
Round about 2007 or so American ingenuity kicked in. You see, if you
keep oil prices high enough, Americans will figure out how to profit
from them. Oh, look, and we did. Fracking was invented, which basically
squeezes out the little amount of oil that’s under every ground. North
Dakota, America’s Siberia (and I say that from experience), became a
boom state. Over the course of about a decade, the United States went
from a secondary afterthought in the global oil market to one of the top
producers, rivaling Saudi Arabia itself.
Traditionally, when oil prices get low, Saudi Arabia props them up by
cutting back on production. Not anymore. American oil has made them
blink. When a giant nation like the U.S. suddenly becomes energy
independent, it makes the energy providers blink.
Blink. Blink.
Saudi Arabia decided, and OPEC with it (reluctantly), to pump oil
full blast, the plan being to drive the price of oil into the basement.
American producers, they hoped, would then be driven out of business.
