I think the Saudi's should seriously consider dipping into ARAMCO and start buying out big shale players in Oklahoma and Texas. Since they couldn't put them out of business to hold onto market share they can simply buy them out instead.
There are a few companies that should be on their shopping list. First of all the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund is about $2 Trillion so they have a huge war chest. They can first buy EOG which has a $51 billion market cap. That is 10% of Texas output right away. Then buy Devon which has a market cap of $21 billion which will give them 5% more oil and 8.8% of the natural gas. Then buy Chesapeake for a song at $300 million which given them access to the Utica shale in Ohio. Finally buy Whiting which is worth $2.2 billion and you have access to the Bakken shale.
So for about $90 to $100 billion when you add a 30% markup they would control quite a bit of the shale production in the US. Even if they just bought out just one of these companies, and aggressively bought shale assets around their headquarters, it would go a long way to controlling the market share that they don't have access to.
You would think this would never pass muster with the White House. But remember Hillary can be bought. If she wins they can peel off $1 billion of those investment assets and send it right to the Clinton Foundation. Suddenly Treasury and the EPA will look the other way on any Saudi buyouts. Then they can protect their main assets by slowing down shale production in the US. A Saudi owned EOG will suddenly find that "some of their projections on shale were greatly exaggerated" so there must be production cuts. That is how they need to play the "Great Game." Exploit the greedy Clinton's to protect your major assets. Its a no brainier play.
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