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Comment by zentiggr | Hacker News Reader

So where is the Vision Fund getting these billions, and why do they need them laundered (squandered?) so badly?

Saudi-Arabian oil (read: blood) money. With Peak Oil around the corner (if it hasn't already hit thanks to corona), the Saudi dictatorship is in desperate need for a way to finance their lavish lifestyle and handouts, or it faces rebellion.

The only thing buying the Saudi government peace at the moment from both religious salafi extremists on one end and a young Westernized population on the other hand is extremely generous handouts which in turn depend on an oil price around 80-90$ range IIRC. But cheap US/CA fracking and shale oil have been attacking that price level for quite some time which also is problematic for the Russian economy for similar reasons, so both SA and RU are hellbent on destroying the US/CA domestic oil industry (which is highly leveraged and debt financed), which complicates matters even more.

There is no way peak oil (which I assume is peak oil demand, not supply) is going to happen anytime soon. Too much of the world has massive energy needs in order to develop (almost all of Africa, large parts of South America and Asia) and oil will be a huge part of the energy mix given its advantages. The current coronavirus situation might depress oil demand for a bit, but unless living standards get permanently stuck at low levels in the developing world oil demand is going to grow for the foreseeable future. Of course, how Saudia Arabia does depends on how long their reserves last, and many people believe they've overstated the amount of oil they have remaining.

Africa can satisfy lots of its energy needs with essentially free solar, plus Africa has lots of local oil, they don't need the Saudis.

As for oil demand: many Western countries have by now recognized their toxic dependency on oil. Plastics are being fought against worldwide, electric mobility is more or less mainstream with Tesla and ICE phase-outs across Europe, business air travel will be mostly replaced with teleconferences...

I think you are underestimating the convenience of oil relative to other forms of energy. Also, Saudi Arabia has a mostly functioning government, which is not really true of most African countries and Saudi Arabia is one of the lowest cost producers. Maybe some African countries can compete on price, but not until they increase their engineering capacity and reduce corruption.

Edit: Even if the world does go all in on electric vehicles, you still have to mine all the metals that go into their motors and batteries. That is going to be a huge shock to the mining industry. Probably on a level to the commodity supercycle that China's growth caused. I don't see any way that metals production can be ramped up heavily without an increase in oil demand.

>"Too much of the world has massive energy needs in order to develop (almost all of Africa, large parts of South America and Asia) and oil will be a huge part of the energy mix given its advantages."

Nigeria, Algeria and Angola are all big petro-states. Africa does not need to buy from Saudi. In South America both Brazil and Venezuela are huge petro-states and so they are not dependent on Saudi Oil either.

Sure, but I was talking about peak oil demand. If anything those countries having large oil reserves will just incentivize them to use more oil.

Oil. You can probably connect the dots from there.

MBS

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