U.S. Returns Fire in Saudi Arabia’s Oil War

One day after Saudi Arabia declared war on U.S. oil producers by lowering prices in an attempt to dump cheap crude in the United States (US) market, the White House and private oil companies responded.  White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the U.S. is monitoring the global oil supply and demand situation but has no comment on whether it might look at replenishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then, later in the day, the Wall Street Journal reported that BP is going to export ultra-light crude without the permission of the U.S. government in a move that not only starts to breakdown the US export ban, but also is a direct challenge to OPEC and other producers for market share.  Both of these developments temporarily gave support to the petroleum complex, but it still was not enough to overcome the perception of overwhelming supply and Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda’ s prescription against the disease deflation.

In Historic First China Begins Oil Extraction In Afghanistan

In a surprising (if not quite shocking) move, late on Friday Canada blocked Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s C$5.2 billion takeover of Progress Energy Resources Corp. saying the bid by the Malaysian state-owned company “wasn’t in Canada’s national interests.” As BusinessWeek explains, “in what investors say is a test case for the $15.1 billion bid by CNOOC Ltd. of China for Calgary-based Nexen Inc., the Canadian government said it “was not satisfied that the proposed investment is likely to be of net benefit to Canada,” according to an Oct. 19 statement from Industry Minister Christian Paradis.” While it is unclear precisely what would be of “net benefit to Canada” what is certain is that the Progress Energy move will crush investor spirits who in recent months have expected a flurry of foreign bids coming for local energy names, only to be left at the altar courtesy of government intervention.