Saudi Arabia may go broke.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Depends on the oil prices I suppose. I mean Saudi Arabia is deliberately keeping oil prices low at the moment to screw over Iran, and hoping to ride out the losses by the currency reserves they've built up over the years.
So I imagine before they run out they'll jack the oil prices back up again, either that or someone will do something stupid in the Middle East and they'll rise up again.

Either that or they'll get even more feudal and go North Korean. Which will be...interesting...

The oil prices were also lowered to screw over US oil companies who, because oil prices were so high, found the extraction of shale oil by fracking was economically feasible, making a rather big area of competition to the Saudis. For the Saudis, mission accomplished: the significant collapse of fracking is due far more to the decreased cost benefit to the oil companies than any actions by the conservationists...

There is also the continued move to alternative energy sources and more efficient vehicles that use less or no petroleum fuels. The change has become worldwide and is beginning to impact oil sales in formerly heavy consumption nations. Even China is making moves to lessen petroleum consumption and that would remove a very large customer base from the Saudis...

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