Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
Mrch 7, 2011
Oil market speculators used the escalating conflict in Libya as an excuse to jack up crude prices to $106 per barrel today. Crude oil prices rose on news opposition forces and soldiers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi clashed near some of the country’s key energy infrastructure.
Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $2.25 to $106.67 a barrel by early afternoon in Europe. The price increase is the highest since September 2008, according to the Associated Press. In London, Brent crude for April delivery was up $1.80 to $117.77 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Asian stocks and currencies also fell on news of rising violence in the Middle East. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 1.1 percent to 137.83 as of 3:32 p.m. in Tokyo, led by a 1.8 percent drop in Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Oil prices were on a steady rise prior to the engineered revolutions in North Africa. Traders were convinced that demand for oil was set to rise by around 2 percent in 2011. Industry experts and Wall Street speculators predicted a gradual move to $120 and even $150 per barrel oil prices.
Gold and silver prices also spiked on Monday. Gold for April delivery was adding $15.80 to $1,444.40 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to The Street.
After rising 4.2% Friday, spot silver traded up a further 2% or 66 cents to $36.33 a troy ounce today, driven by higher oil prices due to political unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In December, Lindsey Williams predicted the price of oil would skyrocket to between $150 and $200 a barrel this year. Williams served as a pastor on the Alaskan pipeline and has insider sources within the oil industry.
On March 1, Williams told Alex Jones the uprisings in the Middle East are engineered by the global elite and will soon spread to Saudi Arabia.
Protests are planned in the oil kingdom and the government has promised to dispatch 10,000 troops to put down any dissent. The demonstrations were initially planned for Friday – the Muslim day of worship when demonstrations are traditionally held – but organizers of demonstrations have decided to take to the streets today, March 7, according to Forex News. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia announced it would not allow any demonstrations or sit-in protests in the country.
A member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, said on February 17 the kingdom may see protests unless King Abdullah introduces reforms, according to BBC Arabic TV. Abdullah announced plans to spend about 110 billion riyals ($29 billion) on programs aimed at boosting housing, education and social welfare.
In response to the prospect of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia and the growing conflict in Libya, Dubai’s shares retreated for a third day on Monday. “Investors are shunning assets in the region as the political turmoil, which started in Tunisia more than two months ago, expanded to Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Iran,” reports Bloomberg.
On Tuesday, March 1, the Tadawul, the largest stock market in the Arab world, plunged 6.78 per cent following the arrest of a prominent Shia cleric and the prospect of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia.
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Kurt Nimmo edits Infowars.com. He is the author of Another Day in the Empire: Life In Neoconservative America.
