Category: Saudi Arabia

Tribute to a moderate Saudi

February 28, 2021 0

  “The Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will not end because we run out of oil”. This is an example of Sheikh Yamani’s clairvoyancy, who died a few days ago and who was the oil minister of Saudi Arabia from 1962 to 1986. Throughout…

By Michel Santi

Oil: what a brutal world!

March 9, 2020 0

  We are living in turbulent times and our world can attest, since a few days ago, to the equivalent of a declaration of war taking place on the oil market. Saudi Arabia, that is suffering a fall of more than 20% of its exports to China (its biggest client) due to the coronavirus epidemic,…

By Michel Santi

Saudi Arabia is no longer ‘too big to fail’

December 5, 2018 0

Is Saudi Arabia still an important partner to the US? The question answers itself, at least partially, with the Middle East having drastically changed since the strategic and fundamental alliance made in 1943 by President Franklin Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. It’s now a distant time when FDR boldly, vociferously claimed that “the defence…

By Michel Santi

Qatar & Saudi Arabia: a cold peace

April 22, 2018 0

According to statements made by the then President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, “Qatar has too much money”. In fact, only the insiders were familiar with this Emirate prior to the 1990s, even though the little State has distinguished itself as the richest in the world per capita thanks to the proliferation of its oil…

By Michel Santi

Saudi Arabia: black swan of 2016

January 14, 2016 0

The Angolan kwanza collapsed by 15% in a few hours as soon as the country’s authorities effected its devaluation a few days ago. Last month it was Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, which lost a third of its value in a few hours when its national central bank decided to abandon its indexation to the American…

By Michel Santi

Checkmate for Saudi Arabia

September 12, 2015 0

The debacle of oil prices has greatly exceeded that of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Asian crisis of 1998. And it is much more severe. At the end of this summer of 2015, OPEC is just a shadow of its former self: simply put, it has been de facto dissolved and this…

By Michel Santi