Vice-Premier Khristenko: Russia insists its oil interests in Iraq be recko

[Nottingham]

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2003/10/18/50580.html

Vice-Premier Khristenko: Russia insists its oil interests in Iraq be reckoned with

Russia's involvement in the efforts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to maintain stable oil prices will in no small measure depend on whether its interests in Iraq are duly reckoned with, Russian Vice Premier Viktor Khristenko told the media on Friday.

"We will take heed of the OPEC insofar as we will manage to make our own voices heard on Iraq," Mr. Khristenko said in reply to a reporter's request that he comment on OPEC leaders' pronouncements about the impossibility, without Russia's help, of keeping up the world oil prices in the face of resuming petroleum exports from Iraq. "Here should be normal mutuality and adequacy," he stressed.

As Khristenko pointed out, all of Russia's plans and actions on the oil market are absolutely open and transparent. "We don't try to conceal anything, neither for this year, nor for the next," he assured.

"As for the general price situation on the oil market, Russia is, of course, interested in its stability and predictability," the Vice-Premier said. According to him, it is common knowledge that the price his country finds fair and suitable is around $25 per barrel.
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What Opec is afraid of is its Demise! And yes they have much to fear
:bounce:....And Russia is definitely a Wild Card as well as Iraq

[Nottingham]

1. Russia would not tie itself by OPEC membership

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2003/10/18/50577.html

Russia would not tie itself by OPEC membership

Russia's entry in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries would limit Moscow's capability for securing stability and predictability of the oil market, Vice-Premier Victor Khristenko said.

Russia is not only a major producer but also a major consumer of raw hydrocarbons and as nobody else can understand the producers' and consumers' interests, he explained.

"Russia is extremely interested in stable oil and gas market. It is achieved through mutual respect for the interests of both producers and consumers", Victor Khristenko said.
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Bottomline there is NO WAY Russia will join OPEC! :bounce:

[Old and In the Way]

2. I've been wondering.......

Isn't also in the US Oil companies' interests to see Iraqi oil stay in the ground? I know that the sabotauging may be Iraqi nationalists/Islamic fundies doing, but I'm beginning to wonder if the interests of the oil companies are not also served by limiting Iraq's oil volumes on the open market.

[eridani]

3. They might start using Euros for oil

http://www.blackcommentator.com/60/60_cover_iraq.html

The previously unthinkable is now on the table. Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter, is giving serious consideration to trading its black gold in euros, a switch that would surely set dominos in motion among other oil producing nations and, ultimately, knock the dollar off its global throne. Americans can thank George Bush and his Pirates for accelerating a process that might have taken decades to evolve, but which now looms as a “catastrophe” on the horizon.

Saudi Arabia is the number one oil exporter. Having severed its military alliance with the U.S., the Saudi royal family may be ready to drop the other shoe. "The Saudi Crown Prince 's visit to Russia was of great significance and the regime is talking about closer cooperation with LUKoil and other Russian companies," says Council on Foreign Relations oil analyst Youssef Ibrahim.

No nation is eager to upset the global currency regime. (“We do not want to hurt prices on the market," President Putin was quick to add, at his Urals press conference.) The Saudi princes, who value their dollar-denominated wealth more highly than the teachings of Wahhabi Islam, are by inclination among the least likely candidates to lead an OPEC euro-shift. Yet relentless pressures from Ariel Sharon’s Israel, its lobbyists and allies on Capitol Hill, and from the Likkud group within the Bush administration, have pushed the Saudis closer to the breakpoint. If Russia goes euro, they will likely follow – sooner, if there is one more military outrage against a sovereign Arab state. (In that sense, the fate of the dollar may be in Sharon’s hands.)