-
Because your assertion that western governments want war in Syria/northern Iraq to keep oil prices low makes no sense.
Ah, I wouldn't say that, but I may not have been clear. Or I may indeed be talking bollocks, in which case tell me if the following is. I said:
Needless to say, certain Western powers have no interest in bringing stability to the region, as this would mean an increased oil price.
By 'region' I mean the whole region, not only Syria and Iraq. By 'stability' (or lack thereof) I mean to refer to the long history of divide-and-rule in the region, typically arming the minority somewhere against the majority in 'post-colonial' (really 'quasi-post-colonial') textbook politics (but also dividing countries and other countries), installing and propping up kleptocracies which kowtow to the West's interest in a lower oil price than they should be charging. This has a long-term effect that offsets the inevitable fluctuations in price based on supply factors.
Were the Near and Middle East able to emancipate themselves and charge realistic prices for their resources, the world's economy would become more balanced pretty damn quickly.
Oliver Schick-
The OPEC countries do charge realistic prices for their commodities. They already hiked the price when they realised their power - hence the oil shocks of the 1970s. What they charge now is largely a function of what the market will bear. Too high a price and the market will develop alternatives - such as renewables, or such as the horizontal drilling and fracturing techniques that have made shale exploitable. Now OPEC is allowing prices to stay low - rather than rebalancing the market as they have previously done at times of cyclical, rather than structural, oversupply - because they want to kill off a chunk of US shale, which is a threat to their political/economic power. Making renewables that bit harder to do is probably just a bonus.
I say OPEC. This policy is largely the GCC's doing - the more populous OPEC states like Venezuela and Algeria and Iran would much prefer a higher price, because their budgets are stretched. But the GCC, and Saudi in particular, have a point to prove.
h2o
Because your assertion that western governments want war in Syria/northern Iraq to keep oil prices low makes no sense.
Let's say that productivity hasn't been lost at oilfields under Daesh control (it most likely has). The oil would be coming to market anyway through formal channels. It doesn't change the global supply-demand balance much to have war in Syria/northwest Iraq
Most of Iraq's production is in the south, around Basra, for the record.
Oil prices are low because OPEC has no quotas at the moment because they're trying to force US shale drillers to scale back production. Which they're gradually doing, but everyone I talk to (I'm an energy journalist) reckons oil's going to stay below $70/bl for a good few years yet.
Basically what's going on in Syria has very little impact on the oil price.