Are oil export restrictions in the cards?

[GliderGuider]

It just occurred to me that with the current rocketing prices we could see a similar export control scenario play out in the oil market as we did in the rice market. It's less likely because it would put some powerful importers with big armies (OK, mainly one powerful importer) in jeopardy, and they might object, but I wonder if it's a possible scenario. Does anyone have thoughts on this possiblility?

[northernsoul]

1. I think rising "oil nationalism" is quite likely

I wouldn't be surprised if many oil-exporting nations are going to start reducing their export levels in order to start building up their own internal oil reserves.

[Strelnikov_]

2. "Kazakhstan bans export of oil products amid soaring fuel costs"

Finished product, not raw material . . yet.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/19/business/AS-FIN-Kazakhstan-Fuel-Ban.php

Kazakhstan on Monday banned the export of all refined oil products, news agencies reported, as the energy-rich Central Asian nation grapples with soaring fuel costs.

. . .

Kazakhstan has huge oil and gas resources, but soaring prices for consumer products like diesel and other fuel are having a knock-on effect on the country's agricultural sector.

The increase in the cost of diesel and gasoline have outstripped the rate of inflation in recent months. Inflation already looks set to hit last year's rate of 18 percent.

Industry insiders insist rising fuel costs are caused by foreign demand, but the head of Kazakhstan anti-monoply body said Monday he believed there have been instances of price-fixing for some forms of fuel.





"Sweet!!!"

[GliderGuider]

3. Well, whaddya know!

I missed that story, thanks.

[The2ndWheel]

4. This would be the reason we would need a single global organization

Multiple nations aren't efficient. You can't have importers and exporters. That's not equal access to resources. That's not the world progress promises.

Multiple corporations aren't efficient either, as competition is wasteful, especially when all those corporations are in conflict with not only themselves, but the monopolistic power of the state.

What is needed is a single entity, not a corporation, not a government, but a conglomeration of the two, which represents the interests of every single person on the planet. We can't have worker and environmental rights in America, and not in China. We can't have state owned oil companies, and Exxon. We can't have infrastructure in Europe, but not Africa. We can't have wealthy people, and poor people. We can't have people that benefit from the welfare state(Europe), and people that don't(US). We can't have high taxes somewhere, and low taxes somewhere else. We can't have individual armies, and not have war. We can't have instant global communication, and not have outsourcing. We can't have placelessness for corporations, and people confined to place. We can't have individual governments acting in their own best interest in a world of mutiple governments.

[GliderGuider]

5. I get cold shivers thinking about that

A one-world corporate-government? I hope you left a sarcasm tag off that part.

The world has never been about equal access to anything. That's a very recent utopian dream.

What I think is about to happen though, will take the world in the exact opposite direction at an accelerating pace. As transportation becomes more expensive with increasing oil depletion, as communications become more difficult with increasing electrical instability, we will see the world fragment rather than unify. As someone who passionately believes in the value of diversity in all things from bacteria to human culture, I think that will be a good thing.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. (Depending on how you define "very recent.")

Is http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=78390371">2,000 years ago "very recent?" ;-)

...
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. ...

[GliderGuider]

7. Fair enough, hunter-gatherer cultures had the same ethos.

Maybe I just meant it's now a minority view in conflict with the prevailing culture.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. It was a minority view in those days too

I think the key is that when you have relatively little, it's easier to share what you have. (It's much http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=78391669">harder for a rich person.)

For example, the poor give a much larger percentage of their income to charity than the rich do. Paradoxically, the more you have the harder it is to give it to others.

The problem is that in our culture, many of us are relatively rich.

[The2ndWheel]

8. As do I

I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm completely with you about diversity(which is kind of funny when you think about what I just said). I wish there were at least a billion different ways of life.

"we will see the world fragment rather than unify"

I'm all for a human world, and not this institutional one. But if we are able to harness enough energy, and we will try to harness anything we possibly can no matter the consequence, then that long process of complete unification will continue. I'm sure it will continue even if energy gets really expensive. There are more potential slaves alive today than ever before. When things start getting really bad, those unifying organizations, the ones that will add more and more people in order to survive, will be the only place left to go. So as things fragment, the centralized institutions will increase their centralization, violently if needed.

Either way, it'll be interesting.

[GliderGuider]

9. Have you read Tainter?

His book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" addresses exactly this problem. He claims that societies collapse due to the diminishing marginal return on complexity. That is, increasing problems require societies to increase their organizational complexity to cope. Eventually the marginal value of increasing complexity begins to decline, and at that point the society is in trouble.

IMO the span of control will be too large and the required complexity will be unsustainable as energy begins to decline. That will lead inexorably to fragmentation rather than unification.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Oh I don't know...

Consider the unification of the colonies which became known as the United States of America.

You know, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum">E Pluribus Unum," and all that jazz. Unless I'm mistaken, they really didn't have a heck of a lot of energy in those days.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

...

[The2ndWheel]

13. I agree

But before that happens, at whatever point that is, I think we'll see more centralization. We'll see more corporations merging together. We'll see more nationalization of this or that resource. Physical reality will catch up, but before then, we'll see the Fed bail out as many banks as it can(and the banks it can't help will fade away and be replaced by the bigger banks). We'll get national healthcare at some point, since the system we have is already broken. More mass transit. More mass anything really. We'll need more people paying into the same system. That's why we don't get to choose which tax we pay. If we allowed people to choose which taxes they paid, or even pay any taxes at all, the government couldn't function.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Guaranteed, I think.

OK, you can probably suck Kuwait dry, but a Putin-a-like in Russia is going to tell everyone to fuck off at some point, and who's going to argue?

The middle ground is going to be places like Venezuela, but I imagine Chavez is watching the US getting sand kicked it it's face in Iraq and writing his to-do list right now.

[Zachstar]

15. His oil sucks.

More than likely his oil is going to be used to power steam engines rather than refined.

[Zachstar]

14. Very likely. Small nations are already starting to be priced out of oil.

Small nations with so much as a single pump are going to be locking down because they BADLY need the oil and fuel to power their AG business.

What I worry about is at this rate even nations without a refinery are going to lock down and just start building steam engines that burn the oil directly. Without safeguards the crap being out into the atmosphere will be extreme.