Mmmmmm.... shwarma...
Posted on 07/24/2008 4:28:23 AM PDT by drzz
Libya's dictatoship of Kadhafi has decided to suspend its oil selling toward Switzerland after Swiss authorities arrested and briefly detained Kadhafi's son in Geneva, last week, under the charges of having beaten two employees.
Khadafi's son, Hannibal, seeks revenge. The Libya National Oil Company announced Libya will cancel its oil sells to Switzerland.
Libyan oil represents 48% of Switzerland's needs.
Hello, McFly? (Not you, poster)
It’s a commodity, they can buy it on the world market just like anybody else.
Stop shipping chocolate to them, tit for tat.
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
I wonder when people will realize that, for the most part, oil is fungible, and it doesn’t really matter where it is sold on the world market, as long as it is sold.
Switzerland ought to seize Khadaffi’s Swiss bank accounts, see how many seconds it takes for him to change his mind.
We must stop appeasing a bunch of islamist dictators sitting on huge reserve of oil and stop also Obama the wanabe appeaser in chief
They are going to replace 48% of their supply over night? Yeah right. Stop and think about what that will cost. For one there isn’t that much crude available at current cost. They will have to pay very high prices for the short term. So either A. they will capitulate and reconcile with Kaddafi, B. break from their neutrality stance and invade Libya or C. they will hunker down for a world of hurt financially. I don’t know what 48% amounts to, but I would imagine for a small nation that is enough to wreck their economy in the short term.
Ha! Would the Swiss even do that to save themselves? Their banking reputation would say otherwise.
Sorry I misspelled Khadaffi.
Must stop radical nations from holding us hostage with oil
Must stop funding radical nations with oil money
DRILL HERE - DRILL NOW!
Pelosi AmericanVoice@mail.house.gov
You are right. However, our Demo-Socialist Congressmorons are so stupid they will probably propose legislation to “require” that Bush sell oil from our strategic reserves to help Switzerland.
How are you supposed to spell Muammar Gaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi?
Gaddafi will still need to sell that oil somewhere.
That’s correct. It shouldn’t make a bit of difference to the Swiss. The oil is not being pulled from the market by Libya since for them to do that would be depriving them of revenue.
Yes!
And the environmental stance is for me very suspicious.
Should Dems prefer US oil dependence?...
LOL! yes I received a Freepmail explaining the same. Thanks.
Not overnight, instantaneously.
Kaddafi will insist on selling to anyone but Switzerland, so there will be that much more oil available to non-Swiss nations. Meanwhile, Switzerland will buy oil from non-Libyan nations.
Not in the short term. Khadaffi doesn’t need the money, at least not at the moment. He has the time to sit and play hard ball. Of course he could be bluffing as well. Also whose to say he is going to sell it on the open market. He could sell it at a small discount to somebody else.
Well, peg my parachute pants and kick off my Kanga-Roos! I’m having 80’s flashbacks! As a kid I was always amused by the multiple spellings of his name that would appear in a single newspaper. His first name caused similar amusement.
ping
“Switzerland will buy oil from non-Libyan nations.”
But at what price? $125 per barrel is for future contracts. Whatever oil they buy in short term is already slated to go somewhere else. They will have to pay a higher price to entice the exporter to shipped to them instead of the original destination. So is that going to be $150, $175 maybe $200? and for how long? The current production of oil is about right at what is bought and used. Khadaffi could easily remove this supply for awhile and the Swiss will have to sweat it out.
Guess the Swiss didn’t realize blood is thicker than oil.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out overseas.
IMHO, no one will admit it publically but the EU and Swiss are starting to have zero tolerance for the Muslim community.
This will be just one more straw on the camel’s back.
Is he still a Colonel? How does a General in is Army act around him when they are in the same room? LOL!
Libya's oil will go on the spot market, from which the Swiss will buy
What you said.
Only in a petty dictatorship would you see this kind of stupid thinking and petty tyranny. The guy's sons are arrested and without batting a lash he terminates a major international trade agreement, hurting a valued customer and his own country.
I remember a bumper sticker from the early 80’s when Kadhafi was tempting America, much as Ihmanutjob has been doing and he drew that imaginary “line of death.”
It was on the back bumper of a big American car from the 70’s and there was a young boy driving it with two girls in the front seat. The bumper sticker read:
“Kadhafi: Stoned or stupid.”
The scene of that car with those three, young, free happy kids driving around with that bumper sticker still warms my heart for some reason.
Kadhafi is still either stoned or stupid. Though he was wise in giving up (purportedly) up his weapons programs after what he saw we did to Iraq in so short a time.
Kaddafi is not going to drink it, he’s going to attempt to sell it to someone else, or just shut his steaming shawarma pipe and sell it to the Swiss as contracted.
Well the Swiss probably have one of their aircraft carriers leaving a Swiss port and on the way to that part of the Mediterranean right now!!!!!
Exactly. Libya sells to any other bidder, and then oil that bidder would have bought is snapped up by Switzerland.
Can’t really shut down a country’s oil supply by yourself.
Switzerland uses about 253 thousand barrels a day.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentPetroleumConsumptionBarrelsperDay.xls
48% at $125/barrel is about $15.2 million a day. But Switzerland GDP is $300 billion or about $820 million a day.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sz.html#Econ
Libya GDP is $75 billion or about $200 million a day.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ly.html#Econ
Since Switzerland isn't making payments to Libya anymore, I suspect Switzerland can handle the cash flow immediate impact easier than Libya as the search for new buyers and sellers.
They can't. They have made an industry of hiding shady fortunes and they have to protect those fortunes no matter what.
The cantons are already restive about immigrants and this should push them over the edge. Moslems may just find themselves required to be up at dawn every morning saluting a bar of swiss chocotate.
Spot market prices are hardly any different than next months futures.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.html
Good Point! With demand for gasoline dropping here, and higher inventories surprising the industry, it doesn’t look good for Libya. What’s his name ought to think before he cuts his nose off.
I had not seen this Dilbert, but it is now my favorite of all times.
Thanks for posting.
> They can’t. They have made an industry of hiding shady fortunes and they have to protect those fortunes no matter what.
I’m not so sure of that. Naturally the Swiss wouldn’t announce a “tit-for-tat” retaliation, for the reasons you give. They need only look puzzled and say “Accounts? What accounts, Mr Qadaffi?”
Taking a Swiss bank to court in Switzerland would be an expensive exercise in futility.
“We accidently gave your account number to a nice gentleman in Nigeria. You have a fortune waiting for you there.”
This just every-so-slightly off-topic, but, in the big scheme of things, this entire controversy is almost completely meaningless.
Within another generation or so, the nation of Switzerland will be effectively extinct, and the younger folks at Free Republic stand a good chance of living to see Switzerland become actually extinct.
Note that Total Fertility Rate = TFR = the average number of children per woman per fertile liftime, where a woman's typical fertile lifetime could range from the age of about 15 to the age of about 45, but in Western countries, the vast majority [like 95%] of all babies are made by women between the ages of 20 and 35.
Note also that most experts believe a TFR of 2.10 children per woman is necessary just to maintain the population [2.10 is called "replacement rate" fertility] - if the women have more than 2.10 children, then the population grows [exponentially, by generation], and if the women have less than 2.10 children, then the population collapses [exponentially, by generation]. I believe that the extra "0.10" is needed to account for things like infant mortality and imbalances in the sex distributions in the population [slightly more boys than girls, or vice-versa].
TOTAL FERTILITY RATESSo the population in Libya is still growing exponentially [it's increasing by about 50% every generation], while the population in Switzerland is collapsing exponentially: Each generation, there are only about two-thirds as many people in Switzerland as there had been in the previous generation.
Source: List of countries and territories by fertility rateSwitzerland, CIA, 2000: 1.47
Switzerland, CIA, 2008: 1.44
Switzerland, UN, 2000-2005: 1.42
Switzerland, UN, 2005-2010: 1.42Libya, CIA, 2000: 3.71
Libya, CIA, 2008: 3.15
Libya, UN, 2000-2005: 3.03
Libya, UN, 2005-2010: 2.72
Interesting post. Thanks for the data.
You inspired me to google the question of Swiss oil stock piles.
Turns out, they have plenty to tide them over the next few months, while they find new sources.
Switzerland had 4.5 months reserves of petrol
World demand for oil is around 80 million barrels per day. For the Swiss to find about 1/3 of 1% of that somewhere, should not be such a big problem.
48% of Switzerland oil is NOT replaceable overnight?
I’d bet that 48% of Switzerland’s oil equals 25% of Ohio’s oil....and it would be replacable..okay, not overnight, but within 18 hours, anyways...
How does immigration effect the net total of Switzerland’s population? Probably more people moving to Switzerland than Libya.
And that would displace oil that would have been purchased by that "somebody else" from the open market. Or that "somebody else" would immediately turn around and sell it on the open market without the "discount." Either way, the same amount of oil that Libya pulls from Switzerland is immediately available elsewhere on the open market.
> “We accidently gave your account number to a nice gentleman in Nigeria. You have a fortune waiting for you there.”
ROTFL! That’s Hell-Funny!
(BIG GRIN!)
Thanks, the figures you posted shows that they other posters are correct.
These turd world freaks of nature need to be tought a lesson. while oil is needed to drive our cars, we can alwys use our feet if necessary.
But you can't eat oil McUgly. That means it's back to dates and camel pee for you.
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