Ja het rommelde al langer in Yemen dat weet ik. Las iets over dat men verwacht dat dit het volgende 'hoofddoel' gaat worden, en dat dit wederom een grote impact kan gaan hebben op de olieprijzen, en dus ook voor ons.
Small Country/Big Potential Impact
April 5, 2011
Oil futures rose past the $108-a-barrel level in New York yesterday (Monday), a price point they haven't seen for 30 months.
Ask the typical American consumer why oil prices have taken up residence in such a pricey neighborhood, and you'll likely hear about the unrest in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.
Going forward, however, the next culprit in this saga of rising oil prices figures to be a tiny Middle East country called Yemen.
Yemen, which is bordered to the north by Saudi Arabia, to the west by the Red Sea and to the east by Oman, produces about 300,000 barrels of oil per day - about 95% of which is exported.
In fact, because it sits at the crossroads of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Yemen is actually quite strategically positioned: On a daily basis, about three million barrels of Saudi crude float past - most of it destined for the United States and Asia.
That means that Yemen is positioned at a major "choke point," for the regional distribution of oil. And it's also shaping up as the next big catalyst for rising oil prices.
Yemen has been an ally of the United States and the Saudis for decades, and its long-time president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been battling rebels in his northern deserts for years.
Now, however, another war is being waged for control of the government in the Yemen capital. The rebellion started small, but it has exploded. Protestors have been shot, and the President Saleh's erratic public announcements make him seem unstable.
Here's why this is all so important.
According to analysts with TIS Group, foreign oil companies are responding to this unrest with a "partial response" - and are sending some of their workers home.
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY), DNO International ASA of Norway (PINK ADR: NTDOY), and OMV AG (PINK ADR: OMKVY) of Austria have all announced they are evacuating personnel.
In Yemen, as elsewhere in the Middle East, expatriates are largely responsible for running the oilfields. And when those "expats" hit the road, oil production tends to go straight down.