VLADIMIR PUTIN may have done John Kerry a very big favor. When the former KGB agent threatened Yukos with closure for failure to pay the $3.4 billion in taxes he discovered it owed when Yukos' principal shareholder became a political opponent, oil prices temporarily hit a 21-year high. Never mind that any sensible observer knows that Russia's treasury would drown in red ink, and the ruble collapse, if Yukos--which accounts for 20 percent of Russia's current oil production and one-third of the recent increase in output--were forced to suspend export operations for any protracted period.
So tight are oil supplies that even the threat of a temporary loss of what comes to about 2 percent of world production was enough to send traders into a panic. Russia is, after all, the world's second largest oil exporter, right behind increasingly unstable Saudi Arabia, and Putin's politicization of the industry worries those who look to his country to help meet growing demand.
Which is a triple dose of good news for Kerry. First, high oil prices slow the economic recovery, on which the president is relying to create jobs in the 92 days remaining until the voters go to the polls.
Second, a spurt in oil and gas prices hits lower and middle-income voters hardest, giving the Kerry-Edwards duo an opportunity to cry even more loudly that there are "Two Americas," the privileged who support the president, and the hard-pressed, driving-to-work masses for whom higher gas prices are only one of many woes.
Finally, even
a passing threat, such as the shutdown of Yukos, emphasizes America's dependence on foreign oil. Like every president and presidential candidate since the days of Richard Nixon, Kerry is promising to end this dependence so that America will never again have to go to war for oil. No matter that even the most casual student of America's energy situation knows that independence from imports is an unattainable goal, and that it is a lot cheaper to buy high-priced oil than to conquer a country that produces it. At this time of year, perceived political advantage trumps sensible proposals every time.
THE YUKOS INCIDENT is less significant for its immediate political implications than for what it tells us about oil markets in the longer term. Demand for oil is rising rapidly, at the fastest rate in more than three years in the United States. And this despite the fact that high gas prices "caused growth in U.S. gasoline demand to stall out . . . for a second straight month in June," according to the American Petroleum Institute.
And the high prices are doing wonders for the major international oil companies' bottom lines. ExxonMobil, for example, last week reported that it had earned almost $6 billion in the second quarter, an all-time record for any company in a three-month period. But the oil companies are not responding to higher prices and earnings by increasing their search for oil.
Exclude Russia, and BP's output is declining, as are Shell's and ChevronTexaco's. Production at ExxonMobil is more or less flat. Only Total, with its commitment to Africa and Asia, seems to be stepping up production. Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, CEO of Mondoil, an independent international company, and a close student of the production side of the oil business, says that despite high oil prices and technological innovations that are driving finding and production costs down, the largest oil companies have in recent years replaced only three-fourths of their production.
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