Cheap-Oil Era Tilts Geopolitical Power to U.S.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-20/cheap-oil-era-tilts-geopolitical-power-to-u-s-.html

A new age of abundant and cheap energy supplies is redrawing the world’s geopolitical landscape, weakening and potentially threatening the legitimacy of some governments while enhancing the power of others.

Some changes already are evident. Surging U.S. oil production enabled America and its allies to impose tough sanctions on Iran without having to worry much about the loss of imports from the Middle Eastern nation. Russia, meanwhile, faces what President Vladimir Putin called a possibly “catastrophic” slump in prices for its oil as its economy is battered by U.S. and European sanctions over its role in Ukraine.

“A new era of lower prices is being ushered in” by the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution, Ed Morse, global head of commodities research for Citigroup Inc. in New York, said in an e-mail. “Undoubtedly some of the geopolitical changes will be momentous.”

They certainly were a quarter of a century ago.

 Plunging oil prices in the latter half of the 1980s helped pave the way for the breakup of the Soviet Union by robbing it of revenue it needed to survive. 

The depressed market also may have influenced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade fellow producer Kuwait in 1990, triggering the first Gulf War.

Russia again looks likely to suffer from the fallout in oil markets, along with Iran and Venezuela, while the U.S. and China come out ahead.

‘Geopolitically Important’

Oil is “the most geopolitically important commodity,” said Reva Bhalla, vice president of global analysis at Stratfor, an advisory company in Austin, Texas. “It drives economies around the world” and is located in some “usually very volatile places.”

Benchmark oil prices in New York have dropped more than 30 percent during the last five months to around $75 a barrel as U.S. crude production reached the highest in more than three decades, driven by shale fields in North Dakota and Texas. Output was 9.06 million barrels a day in the first week of November, the most since at least January 1983, when the weekly data series from the Energy Information Administration began.

“For 10 years, the defining factor in the oil market was the growth of China and Chinese oil demand,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of Englewood, Colorado-based consultant IHS Inc. and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the commodity. “Now the defining factor is the astonishing growth of U.S. oil production.”

Price War

“Saudi Arabia is really taking a big gamble here,” said Archie Dunham, chairman of shale producer Chesapeake Energy Corp. in Oklahoma City. “If they take the price down to $60 or $70 a barrel, you will see a slowdown in the U.S. But you’re not going to see it stop.”

Probable Case

The most probable case is a four- or five-year cycle with prices in a general range of $65 to $80 a barrel, he said. That compares with an average of about $88 from 2008 to 2013 and a high of more than $140 at one point during that period.

Russia is the biggest loser, according to a Bloomberg Global Poll of international investors last week. Revenue related to the sale of oil and natural gas accounts for about half the country’s budget.

The combination of U.S. and European sanctions and declining oil prices means a period of extended economic stagnation for Putin comparable to the later years of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s 1964-1982 rule, said Neil Shearing, the chief emerging-markets economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London.

“Thanks to sanctions, the population has rallied behind Putin,” said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information, an independent consulting company in Moscow. “People are ready to put up with hardship in order to resist the West.”

Oil-Export Revenue

Iran has seen its revenue from oil exports fall by some 30 percent, President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks to parliament published Oct. 29 on Shana, the Oil Ministry’s news website. The nation needs to achieve a break-even sales price of $143 a barrel this year to keep its budget in balance, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Like Russia, Iran’s economy has been weakened by economic sanctions -- in its case over its nuclear program. The steps by the U.S. and its allies have almost closed Iran’s oil and gas fields to investment in the last decade, limiting the country’s access to technology to boost output.

Downward Pressure

If he does strike a deal and sanctions are lifted, it could put further downward pressure on oil prices as the country increases its exports. That’s what London hedge-fund manager Pierre Andurand -- who predicted the price plunge last month -- is betting on. He sees Brent crude declining to $65 to $70 a barrel as Iran boosts output after reaching a nuclear agreement, according to a Nov. 11 letter to his investors.

Social turmoil in Venezuela could “paradoxically” help prop up prices “a bit” if output there was disrupted, said Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

The U.S. is emerging as a big winner, according to the Nov. 11-12 poll of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers.

U.S. Prestige

The boom in U.S. energy output also enhances U.S. prestige.

China is another big winner, as it imports almost 60 percent of its crude, said Lin Boqiang, director of the energy economics research center at Xiamen University and an independent director of PetroChina Co.

The world’s second-biggest economy probably will take advantage of the savings to build up its strategic reserves rather than dedicating the funds to increased spending on defense or the environment, according to Lin.

The plunge in oil prices also gives the nation leverage in its dealings with Russia. The two countries signed a $400 billion, 30-year gas-supply accord in May during a summit in China, then deepened their energy ties earlier this month by signing a preliminary agreement for a second Russia-China pipeline.

“China will always have an upper hand in dealing with Russia as long as crude prices stay low,” Lin said. “Russia needs the energy income dearly.”

Russell Girsh, a floor hand for Raven Drilling, helps line up a pipe while drilling for oil in the Bakken shale formation outside Watford City, North Dakota.