It was a landmark moment for the beleaguered energy industry and one heavy with both symbolism and economic implications. The Theo T was ushering in a new era as it left the U.S. Gulf Coast bound for France.The implications -- both financial and political -- for energy behemoths such as Saudi Arabia and Russia are staggering, according to Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank and a former venture capitalist. "It's a game changer," he said.
For the Saudis and their OPEC cohorts, who collectively control 40 percent of the globe's oil supply, the specter of U.S. crude landing at European and Asian refineries further weakens their grip on world petroleum prices at a time they are already suffering from lower prices and stiffened competition. With Russia also seeing its influence over European energy buyers lessened, the two crude superpowers last week tentatively agreed to freeze oil output at near-record levels, the first such coordination in a decade and a half.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch,
U.S. LNG cargoes, in combination with a bevy of new gas projects in Australia, will probably add 15 billion cubic feet of daily supply to global markets in the next few years, Genscape's Michael said. That would be a 43 percent addition to the 35 billion currently bought and sold internationally.
"We will definitely replace Russia as the lowest-cost supplier," Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said of the U.S. expansion. "All of these things will have geopolitical and economic consequences. It's a win-win for the U.S. and the West."
In spite of 0bama. Who sez that America ain't still great? :-)