OPEC and Saudis Losing Clout

I read an interesting article from Fox News which focuses on the effect that the current boom in the US energy sector is having, and will have in the future on the fortunes of OPEC countries — specifically Saudi Arabia. Prince Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a top Saudi investor warns the Saudi oil minister that shale gas extraction in the US and elsewhere threatens the welfare of the country which is almost entirely reliant on oil for its revenues.

Demand for crude oil from OPEC countries has decreased in recent years, and is projected by experts to continue to do so in the future. This could spell trouble for many OPEC nations who, like Saudi Arabia, are largely dependent on oil revenues to fund their government operations.

I bring up this article here because we have sometimes looked at what the effects of a widespread adoption of LENR could mean to major energy producing countries — but it looks like there is something happening already in this regard because of the conventional energy boom taking place largely due to new methods of fossil fuel extraction.

If LENR is thrown into the mix we could be seeing even more rapid changes in the balance of power in the coming years. And it might turn out that the newfound ascendancy of United States in the energy field because of its progress in oil and gas production could be relatively short lived. Of course we don’t really have a timetable of when commercial LENR will come online and start to make a difference, but if you ask Andrea Rossi he will say that he is optimistic that his plants will be working in the market in the near future. I doubt the big oil producing nations have figured that into their projections quite yet.