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Iran attacks Saudi oil production


Wally Fairway

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1 minute ago, NowThis said:

it's impressive how they violated 500+ miles without warning. I thought Saudi had billions of high tech air defense from the US, so that was rendered ineffective by slow moving drones. BTW, did the drones themselves crash on site? Was is Kamikaze?

That's why I'm a bit skeptical of it being an outside air strike.  That airspace has to be pretty heavily monitored.  Unless these things flew below radar capabilities the entire route.

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Just now, kevwun said:

And what does Iran gain from this attack?  It was not a crippling blow and has a huge likelihood of retaliatory attacks.

raises oil prices, hurts Saudi economy, morale boost for the rebels. Saudi might be inclined to end their barbaric attacks on the Yemeni population. 

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All short term gains that it would be silly to risk a major war for.  You try something like this and it needs to be a Pearl Harbor type attack that is designed to cripple Saudi oil production for years and that just might put the House of Saud's ability to hold on to power in question.

Edited by kevwun
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3 minutes ago, kevwun said:

All short term gains that it would be silly to risk a major war for.  You try something like this and it needs to be a Pearl Harbor type attack that is designed to cripple Saudi oil production for years and that just might put the House of Saud's ability to hold on to power in question.

the rebels stated goal, after they claimed responsibility, was to make Saudi stop attacking Yemen. CR -- imo this is justified, given the carnage they have bestowed onto Yemeni civilians.

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8 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

That's why I'm a bit skeptical of it being an outside air strike.  That airspace has to be pretty heavily monitored.  Unless these things flew below radar capabilities the entire route.

It is pretty flat there.  Flying at 30 feet off the ground the entire way isn't out of the question.  

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2 minutes ago, NowThis said:

the rebels stated goal, after they claimed responsibility, was to make Saudi stop attacking Yemen. CR -- imo this is justified, given the carnage they have bestowed onto Yemeni civilians.

That doesn't explain Iran's reasons for helping the rebels when this could very likely lead to bombs falling on Tehran.

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1 hour ago, kevwun said:

That doesn't explain Iran's reasons for helping the rebels when this could very likely lead to bombs falling on Tehran.

That's the thing.  This was not completely crippling to the Saudi economy, they risk Tehran being bombed, and they risk crippling sanctions.

I just don't see the payoff for Iran - better to wear the Saudis down over the years, perhaps train suicide bombers (or others) to act inside of Saudi borders (similar to the training they provided Shiites to go after Sunnis in Iraq after we invaded in 2003).

This is one of the few things guaranteed to bring world opinion into play.

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17 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

IMO, Iran could be going long game here - they have the defense system in place to pose a serious threat to an aircraft carrier 

How does that defense work against our stealth tech and cruise missiles?

And if they somehow bagged a carrier, we'd pull out all of the stops.  I'm not saying we'd start pulling out nukes, but it'll make Iraq of 2003 (or even 1991) pale in comparison.

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18 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

How does that defense work against our stealth tech and cruise missiles?

And if they somehow bagged a carrier, we'd pull out all of the stops.  I'm not saying we'd start pulling out nukes, but it'll make Iraq of 2003 (or even 1991) pale in comparison.

We can also deploy a bunch of YouTubers and Instagrammers who were going to rush Area 51

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it's impressive how they violated 500+ miles without warning. I thought Saudi had billions of high tech air defense from the US, so that was rendered ineffective by slow moving drones. BTW, did the drones themselves crash on site? Was is Kamikaze?


A lot of what the KSA has that is their own is old. They always talk about upgrading but then it takes years.
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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

That's the thing.  This was not completely crippling to the Saudi economy, they risk Tehran being bombed, and they risk crippling sanctions.

I just don't see the payoff for Iran - better to wear the Saudis down over the years, perhaps train suicide bombers (or others) to act inside of Saudi borders (similar to the training they provided Shiites to go after Sunnis in Iraq after we invaded in 2003).

This is one of the few things guaranteed to bring world opinion into play.

This makes the second event that I'm aware of in recent history, the awkward mining of foreign vessels being the other. Hard to know just who's responsible. Could be false flag or could be rogue Iranians.

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Just now, El Diablo said:

This makes the second event that I'm aware of in recent history, the awkward mining of foreign vessels being the other. Hard to know just who's responsible. Could be false flag or could be rogue Iranians.

If you were a group of young Iranians who wanted to get rid of the leadership/olds running things, and rebuild, this could be one way to do it.

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7 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Oil glut about to drive down the price of oil even lower, holy shit there's an attack which magically is going to drive up prices!!!!!! Blame Iran!!!!!!!

I can't wait until the world moves away from oil. We can then properly not give a fuck about the whole region, Israel included.

In case you haven't been paying attention, the glut has been getting systematically demolished this summer.  Oil is going to be pretty tight going forward and then this is adding fuel to the fire.  

Edited by Trey3216
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8 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

In case you haven't been paying attention, the glut has been getting systematically demolished this summer.  Oil is going to be pretty tight going forward and then this is adding fuel to the fire.  

this was released a few hours before the attack.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtreadgold/2019/09/13/opec-slides-closer-to-collapse-as-an-oil-glut-overpowers-the-oil-price/#ad18bed4ecb5

Quote

The most alarming comments for members of Opec, especially the cartel leader, Saudi Arabia, came yesterday from the International Energy Agency in its monthly Market Report which warned of a growing oil surplus which will get worse next year.

“While the relentless stock builds we have seen since early 2018 have halted, this is temporary,” the IEA said.

“Soon, the Opec+ producers (Opec and Russia) will once again see surging non-Opec oil production with the implied market balance returning to a significant surplus placing pressure on prices.

 

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1 minute ago, crash_davis said:

Rig counts declining for 4 straight months, massive drawdowns on global supply over the course of the summer, and the coming decline in well production from shale producers will prove that theory a bit dated.  

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12 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Rig counts declining for 4 straight months, massive drawdowns on global supply over the course of the summer, and the coming decline in well production from shale producers will prove that theory a bit dated.  

you paint a very different scenario than what was published from the IEA.  i assume the IEA is a well respected authority on oil.  i would imagine that they have access to the same data that you do, and then some.  so why the different views? 

i'm not asking to be a dick.  just trying to understand how two people looking at the same data came to totally different conclusions.

Edited by crash_davis
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1 hour ago, Wally Fairway said:

Here is a write up in BBC.com about why Saudi and Iran are enemies

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42008809

And here is a map of who is taking whose side

Map showing who supports whom

Iran and Israel are enemies, the Israelis are with Saudi - to the extent that Saudi has given them air clearance.  If this drone attack was done by Iran, Israeli intel will quickly find out since they have many spies within the Iranian government.

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3 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

you paint a very different scenario than what was published from the IEA.  i assume the IEA is a well respected authority on oil.  i would imagine that they have access to the same data that you do, and then some.  so why the different views? 

i'm not asking to be a dick.  just trying to understand how to people looking at the same data came to totally different conclusions.

I think the IEA is severely overweight on their global recession estimates.  They're basically assuming that shale producers are going to continue to grow production perpetually.  It's not feasible.  They're estimating away the possibility of any deal getting done with China.  Even a small token deal will slow down, if not reverse, China's growth deceleration as well as lower  the odds of a US recession to very low or nil.  

American Oil producers are finally doing what banks have been asking them to do for several years, reign in expenses.  There is about $2T worth of capex cuts in oil companies around the world over the last 2-3 years.  Even with flat economic growth, the glut is being eliminated quickly.  Any uptick in global growth and we are staring a huge problem in the face.

 

Natgas is going through a similar transformation.  As more and more countries transfer from coal to gas/nuclear for power generation, gas is going to be consumed at much higher rates.  With certain green initiatives in place, gas will become more and more inelastic in its demand curve as the goal to trim carbon far outweighs pricing, mostly via legislation.  Not to mention that as more and more wind and hydro comes online, you'll need natgas generation in order to supplement downtimes and keep grids running properly.  

 

I guess I'm just a contrarian to be honest.  I see what the IEA is saying, but I think they're severely glossing over some very important items that are glaring us dead in the face.  

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anyway, i thought it funny.  a few days ago, i read that article and thought "cool, more cheap gas for the foreseeable future".  then a few hours later, drones take out saudi oil production and i thought, "well, isn't that convenient".  i had a good chuckle at the timing of the "attack".  

back to the original discussion about iran being the suspect.  i don't see it.  why blatantly attack saudi when they know there's going to be a retaliation.  it's zero sum game.  all it does is to cause short term chaos and casualties.  but then the price of oil is increasing so i think i got my answer.  whether it's saudi faking it or truly iran, the end result is the same, higher oil prices.  that's something saudi, iran, russian, and US all agree on.

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4 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

Now that the smoke has cleared, my take-away on the situation is that, "net net", the Saudis are going to need someone to lay some serious pipe.

we'll do saudi's work for them and attack iran.  they'll repay us by having more of their citizens fly planes into more of our buildings.

i hate the whole region.  it's just dirty.  there are no good guys, and that includes israel.

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1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

Oil glut about to drive down the price of oil even lower, holy shit there's an attack which magically is going to drive up prices!!!!!! Blame Iran!!!!!!!

I can't wait until the world moves away from oil. We can then properly not give a fuck about the whole region, Israel included.

Damn, guess I should have used all $.50 of my Kroger discount, yesterday.

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23 hours ago, Johnny Chimpo said:

I read on Reuter’s that they knocked out five crude stabilization towers. Those are massive pressure vessels and even though I’ve never specced out installing them I am in the industry. Lead time on something like that would be like 2-3 months minimum if you could get a fab shop to dedicate itself directly to you and toss all other orders aside. 

Lead time on a rebuild of that type of structure is 2+ years. Period.  It doesn’t matter what any fan shop could do. And they couldn’t do this shit in 2-3 months if you allowed them to print money. It’s the boots on the ground welding pipe and pulling cable that is the critical path. 

I repeat. This was not a refinery. The largest refinery in the world is Reliance in India and its just over 1 my bpd. This facility processed 6.8mm bpd. It’s a production facility. It merely cleans the crude up for export to actual refineries. 

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Don't worry guys, stop with the beating of the war drums.  Pence's Chief of Staff cleared things up this morning:

Quote

"I think that 'locked and loaded' is a broad term and talks about the realities that we're all far safer and more secure domestically from energy independence," said Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Marc Short on Monday morning.

 

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36 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Lead time on a rebuild of that type of structure is 2+ years. Period.  It doesn’t matter what any fan shop could do. And they couldn’t do this shit in 2-3 months if you allowed them to print money. It’s the boots on the ground welding pipe and pulling cable that is the critical path. 

I repeat. This was not a refinery. The largest refinery in the world is Reliance in India and its just over 1 my bpd. This facility processed 6.8mm bpd. It’s a production facility. It merely cleans the crude up for export to actual refineries. 

Yea man. That makes sense. I was just thinking of all the cables, instruments, JBs, actuators, etc that got toasted in that fire. The major equipment is just one piece then you have to install it and actually hook everything else up, commission it, etc. 

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10 hours ago, Johnny Chimpo said:

Yea man. That makes sense. I was just thinking of all the cables, instruments, JBs, actuators, etc that got toasted in that fire. The major equipment is just one piece then you have to install it and actually hook everything else up, commission it, etc. 

Not just that, you probably have to modify things on the ground because the drawings weren't entirely accurate, someone made a pipe spool 25 feet instead of 20 feet or with the wrong bend, and/or someone decided to tweak the design to make it more efficient without thinking about how that change would affect everything else, etc. Rushing major capital projects rarely goes as smoothly as anticipated. Even normal capital projects that have been planned out over a long period of time have these issues.

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