Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Profitability Matrix for Select OPEC countries

Q & O blog ran across some interesting data from Forbes Magazine. Actually it is from PFC Consultants in Washington DC. It is a profitability matrix for select OPEC countries, showing how much money they must sell a barrel of oil for to make a profit, not just today, but next year and the year after as well as how much it USED to take to make a profit. The one country that is notably absent from the matrix is Russia. Granted they are not OPEC members, but it would be very telling I think if they were listed as well. It shows that both Iran and Venezuela are in a world of hurt right now. Both have heavily borrowed against their petro-dollars and now find themselves upside down on their profitability curves. That will have long term impacts on the governments of those two countries. I suspect Russia finds itself in the same boat which would explain the overt coziness Russia has shown towards both regimes. Point of reference, as of the moment, WTI Cushing spot price is at $63.58 a barrel.


OPEC Country20002007200820092010
Venezuela26.5481.0190.9699.88102.68
Iran12.4249.7357.3286.3383.31
Saudi Arabia20.5642.8642.8650.7454.26
Kuwait5.6237.9243.5550.3552.07
UAE1.8927.6933.5340.5645.59
Algeria21.2414.2716.8517.9430.85
Qatar15.8517.3814.7610.188.35

1 Comments:

Blogger Alexander Cornswalled said...

This is not good.

No wonder Iran is funding terrorists in Iraq, they need Iraq's oil to keep their government afloat. It's probably just a matter of time before they invade to try and just take the oil platforms. And here we are with a president elect who'll sit on his thumb while Iran invades. I guess that's his exit strategy, to hand Iraq over to Iran.

November 14, 2008 2:44 PM  

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