naked capitalism Thu 2009-11-19 10:39 EST
va the FT: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange...The point of this move is not to undermine the dollar but to get away from the WTI contract where prices have been artificially inflated due to storage shortages at Cushing.
Sat 2009-10-10 14:19 EDT
The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects -- Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them -- reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance. [dollar losing reserve status]
Tue 2009-10-06 21:12 EDT
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning -- along with China, Russia, Japan and France -- to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar...Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."...
Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT
Jesse's Café Américain: Overseas Private Investors Sell US Financial Assets; Foreign central banks continued to purchase Treasuries while shedding agency debt. This is largely in support of currency pegs for industrial policy and homage from client states like Saudi Arabia.
financial assets; Jesse's Café Américain; Overseas Private Investors Sell.
Fri 2009-01-16 00:00 EST
``There is a game of chicken developing here: both China and Japan hold more than $1.5 trillion in US paper and whoever drops it off the cliff first, will beat the one who hesitates...Will they do it? I would think so! This will probably happen after Saudi Arabia falls to revolutionaries...It is the focal point of all of bin Ladens works and dreams. And it will happen if oil drops below $30 a barrel.'' ``Store shelfs are packed with goods. But let that not fool us! These are the detritus from deals made at least a year ago if not longer. There is nothing in the pipeline. Once the shelves are cleared of goods, there will be few replacements.'' ``The US and EU refused to police our bankers and brokers. So the Communist Chinese will do this for us. No one will bank with the West. They will bank with China if China has good controls...And our money will have Mao grinning at us. We deserve this.''
