Originally Posted by
gloopy
Shutting down ME oil is an EMPTY THREAT.
They need to sell it every bit as much as someone needs to buy it. They will just need to pay for their own defense for once.
As for your "quadruple" oil price scenario, we survived 150sh bbl oil for a while just fine, and a long time at near double today's prices. The higher the price, the more and the faster our larger permanent infrastructure would come online. They know this very, very well. That's why our good buddies in the House of Saud are waging economic warfare against North American oil production right now. Empty threat.
We don't need them. We don't need to babysit them. We don't need to protect them. We don't need to transfer our industry to them. At all.
The gulf states do pay for their own oil by agreeing to only accepting ever-devaluing dollars, and thereby propping up those dollars which foreign countries must have in order to get oil. Those countries that agree to accept currencies outside the dollar do so at their peril. I guarantee the House of Saud is doing whatever it is doing with US approval.