| | | There Would Be No Iranian Nuclear Talks If Not for Fracking
By Matthew Philips November 08, 2013
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Economic sanctions have lowered Iran's oil production by more than 1 million barrels per day since 2011
The fact that this has all happened without the slightest disruption felt in the oil market is extraordinary.
“I think it’s pretty clear that without the U.S. shale revolution, it never would have been possible to put this kind of embargo on Iran,” says Julius Walker, a global energy market strategist with UBS Securities ( UBS). “Without U.S. production gains, I think we’d be looking at $150 a barrel,” says Walker. Instead, international prices have hovered around $110, and are less than $100 in the U.S.
Oil exports typically fund roughly half of Iran’s government spending, so shutting them out from most of the world has been devastating. Although it’s hard to get clear data out of Iran, there is plenty of evidence that the pain has been severe. Inflation in Iran is thought to be running around 50 percent, and unemployment is around 20 percent. While the rest of the world is coming out of recession, the sanctions have pushed Iran back into one. Its economy shrank in 2012 and is expected to shrink again in 2013.
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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-08/there-would-be-no-iranian-nuclear-talks-if-not-for-fracking |
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