U.S.-Iranian war would bring Russia billions of dollars

[ieatcrayonz]

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070329/62804715.html

 

U.S.-Iranian war would bring Russia billions of dollars

 

Yesterday's (Wednesday's) events have shown how economically beneficial the start of hostilities in the Persian Gulf might be for Russia.

 

A reaction by commodity exchanges to mere rumors that Iran shelled a U.S. warship in the Gulf was typical.

The rumors provoked a sharp rise in oil prices favorable to the Russian oil industry. If similar prices remained that high for a year, they would yield Russia a minimum of $10 billion in oil exports alone.

 

Russia's fuel sector would profit even more if a real war were to begin in the Gulf.

 

Currently, Iran supplies about 2.3 million barrels of oil to the world market daily, or 5.7% of world exports.

In the event of a U.S. attack, Tehran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than 20% of the world's oil exports pass.

 

It is not unlikely that Iran would bomb neighbors' oil fields. One can only speculate what sort of a leap in oil prices could be prompted by such a development.

 

"If Iranian oil quits the market, prices could shoot up to $80 and higher," said Dmitry Lukashov, an oil analyst with Zenit Bank.

 

Alfa Bank oil analyst Konstantin Batunin saidthat "the prices could well spiral above $100". Gazprombank analyst Mikhail Zak agrees.

 

With such a surge in prices, it is easy to calculate Russia's bounty from a war in Iran.

 

Russian exports of oil and refined products in crude terms are about 7 million barrels a day. A one-off price increase of $10 would give Russia at least $25 billion a year, with the bulk of the money making it to the state budget.

 

That would enable the government to overcome its tax shortfall, which was about 400 billion rubles ($15 billion) in the first two months of the year because of lower oil prices.

 

Growing oil prices are also likely to benefit Russia indirectly.

 

"Higher revenues for the treasury and companies would push up labor demand and inject life into the country's machine-building and construction sectors," Lukashov said.

 

However, such a scenario, according to Batunin, would also "make the Russian economy more raw materials-dependent in the longer term."

[dib]

It's a perfect scenario for the Iranians. They get to kill Americans by invading and conquering Iraq after some trumped up insult. Lets see, they get Britain ticked, Britian and the US launch a strike against Iran. Just for the hell of it Iran nukes Israel for good measure, then the Israelis show the Iraqis how it's done. The rest is (was?) history.

[JLO]

Just like the US-Iraq war is making billions for all of Bush and Cheneys cronies.

[tennesseeboy]

nazi board stuff...Actually a war with Iran-America would shortly become an Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan war with US. We would probably have to reconfigure how we handle the military aspect of a much broader war with at least a draft and probably some toning down of the outright robbery by contractors (Haliburton stock has done pretty well in this operation.) Even as we do all of this I have to wonder about China's military buildup and their alliance with Hugo Chavez and Chavez military spending, but that I guess is a problem for another day.