On November 15, Mikhail Mashchenko, an analyst at the eToro social network, told the Russian RT network that he expect the price of an oil barrel to raise up to 300$ in case of the Saudi-Iranian war.
“We can expect a panic rise in oil price to $150-$200 on the first day of the conflict… If Saudis and Iran attack each other’s oil facilities, crude prices can skyrocket to $300,” Mashchenko said.
According to RT’s report, Ivan Karyakin, an investment analyst at Global FX said that the global market could survive a day or two of conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, if the conflict continues for more than a week, the oil price will raise to over 200$.
Karyakin argued that the US, China, Japan and the European Union will be the most affected by such an increase in the oil prices, as the countries are the main importers of oil.
“In the event of war, markets may lose about 20 percent of the world supply. First of all, of course, the largest importers will be affected. These include the US, China, Japan, as well as the Eurozone, in fact, the main locomotives of the world economy,” Karyakin said.
Petr Pushkarev, Chief Analyst at TeleTrade, told RT that the relationships between Iran and Saudi Arabia have seen worst times. Pushkarev also stressed that a war is not in the interest of Iran or Saudi Arbia.
“For the coming years, Saudi Arabia itself is too busy with technological and innovative projects to replace the lost oil revenues. They are not at all ready for full-scale armed conflicts with their neighbors right now, which would be very costly, and very inappropriate at the time when Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is intensely concentrating power around himself. Perhaps the presence of an external enemy like Iran can suit his purpose, but only in the mediated conflict on the territory of Yemen,” Pushkarev said.
Just as Pushkarev said, while Saudi Arabia and Iran are more than willing to carry out proxy wars against each other in others countries like Yemen, the two countries will likely never engage in a direct armed conflict against each other.
