Trump is an absolute disaster for the oil and gas industry |
Trump is an absolute disaster for the oil and gas industry
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The bittersweet joke in energy circles is that the Nobel committee should create a new climate prize to reward Donald Trump for his outstanding services.
Nobody has done more to accelerate the world’s electrotech revolution and pull forward the irreversible collapse of the oil and gas industry – not even Greta Thunberg, Al Gore or the strategic planners of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Carlyle Group made waves last year with a report called the “New Joule Order”. The giant US investment firm argued that seaborne molecules were no longer safe in the Hobbesian new world of America First and maritime anarchy.
Jeff Currie, its energy guru, said the open trading system of the last 80 years had been a function of American and allied power, relying on “the US navy as its muscle”.
This gift to the world, akin to the role of Britain’s Royal Navy in the 19th century, had allowed a constant stream of tankers carrying oil, diesel, naphtha, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to criss-cross the oceans with scarcely a moment’s thought about choke points, taking for granted the international dollar system that lubricated trade so efficiently.
Iran’s secret weapon in its war against the US is also its biggest bargaining chip
Currie said the “quest for security” was becoming the dominant driver of electrotech, as countries rushed to insulate themselves from geopolitical risk. It has little to do with climate change and even less to do with the red herring of net zero.
But not even he expected the US to lose its strategic compass so comprehensively as to attack Iran without securing the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off 8 per cent of total world trade for 48 days, including supplies of fertilisers, helium needed for semiconductors and a host of critical inputs that Washington forgot to think about.
Currie says the elemental contract of the petrodollar system is, or was, that the US would keep the sea lanes open and protect oil and gas producers from all foes. In........