The Oil Price Is Now Controlled by Just Three Men | Hacker News Reader

The Oil Price Is Now Controlled by Just Three Men

bloomberg.com

49 pointsjonbaer21 comments

Am I the only one that finds the title of this article a little bit misleading? These three men represent giant organizations, are responsible to several interests and do not really "control" oil prices in the sense of "fixing" the price.

Putin is in almost absolute control of Russia. Sure, an oligarch or a powerful faction may rebel but Putin has other ways of making them whole.

Do we even doubt that Salman is the absolute ruler of SA?

If anything he is by far the weakest of the three. Can't imagine him beginning a veritable price war with the US (or russia) and not ending up inside suitcases.

Inside his country he is not. Putin has to answer to a lot of ex-KGB and to his people up to a point. Salman doesn't care, he can borrow that much and not blink twice.

USA doesn't have many options with SA. Oil will be needed maybe for another 20-30 years, plus Israel needs an ally over there.

That's not what the previous poster was referring to. "Controlled by Just Three Men" sounds like there's a smoky back room where Joe, Bob and Fred meet weekly to collude on oil pricing. Instead the three men are heads of nation states, each of whom can certainly influence the oil price, but they're not cooperating to fix it.

We're going back and forth, but yeah, Trump can increase production with a phone call. Maybe threaten or promise a favor to SA. A $500 per bbl is not good for OPEC long term, so there's a lot more than let's just increase the price.

Even in USA with the three branches, the US President has a LOT of power and if he promises to pass a bill, he has a lot of lever$ he can use to assure the votes are there.

So, yeah, these three men can control the oil price if their interests align.

Neither Putin, nor Saudi king can do "absolutely whatsoever" they want on a whim. They represent huge organizations and still have to keep several people/interest groups happy.

Bloomberg gives bonuses to journalists based on the amount their articles move the market, so it’s not that surprising unfortunately.

Wait, what? Could you elaborate on this?

This kind of thing[0]. There are previous discussion threads on HN too.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa...

  Stunning. I must admit that I am impressed by their candor.

There's a fair whack of poetic license in the headline, but isn't there always?

The idea that you can get a meaningful take on a story just from the title seems a bit lazy to me.

I reckon, having read the article, that the headline is reasonable.

I have a hard time comprehending this article. The three people in charge of Saudia Arabia, Russia and US produce more oil than OPEC the author says. But then SA is in OPEC, and the three don't produce a significant amount more than OPEC combined. What is the entire gist of writing this article other than there's an unproven conspiracy.

I think the author is saying: "OPEC can no longer set high oil prices, because US, Russia and SA produce more oil than OPEC combined." But on the other hand the year 2008 has shown that it is not the US president who is setting the oil price, but the oil company executives [1].

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2008/05/21/news/economy/oil_hearing/in...

Saudi Arabia is in OPEC so the gist of the article is moot.

OPEC is notorious for having members agree to various things on paper and then doing something else entirely.

Then it needs to be replaced.

If we apply ideas from game theory, you will find out that cartels are naturally unstable. I don't think you would be able to replace OPEC with another cartel even if you wanted to . (No one outside the newly formed cartel would welcome a new cartel.)

You replace a cartel by a free trade organisation, not by another cartel.

Free trade is what causes cartels. The is no "you" who gets to control the world economy

OPEC is game theory in action.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com