Bad news for Russia. And there’s this:
…the US needn’t be too complacent either. The shale boom has been partly stoked by the same forces, which are now potentially waning. Oil prices have gone from $20-28 per barrel at the start of the decade to a sustained $100-$105 today. Right now, these prices are being held up by chaos in Middle East and Libya. If circumstances change, price shifts could give US drillers major headaches.
Oil over a hundred a barrel has always been unsustainable over the long haul.
My analysis is somewhat different. Yes it is known steel prices have been going down ever since China started winding down its major urban projects. I have heard this for a couple of years now. This mostly affects countries like Australia, which were the main Chinese source for imported iron and coal, rather than Russia. I also doubt oil prices will be coming down quickly enough and I doubt consumer demand for automobiles in China will stop increasing any time soon either. The US oil embargo on Iran and the insurgencies in places like Iraq keep the supply low.
The main issue Russia faces regarding oil supply is if/when Canada and Venezuela start exporting their tar sands oil outside of North America directly to the EU. Currently the US absorbs most Canadian production and Venezuelan production isn’t ramping up quickly enough again I would venture from political problems.
The other prong which may affect Russia is if France goes back on its policy and starts expanding their large confirmed shale oil reserves, one of the largest if not the largest in the EU, and start exporting that natural gas to the Central European countries which are the major clients of Russian natural gas.
BTW its not just France. Germany and the Baltic nations have large shale oil reserves as well. The problem is with cheap Russian natural gas the political will simply isn’t there but all it takes is another threat from Russia to cut the natural gas and I think any questions the politicians may have will simply vanish.