Oil is one of the Saudi's three pillars

http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2016/05/24/saudis-three-great-pillars-are-showing-cracks/

Andy Critchlow writes an cogent piece on the evolution of modern Saudi Arabia founded in 1932. I found it interesting and it explains the forces reshaping the ruling family. Recommended.

 

There is a great deal of misinformation about Saudi Arabia.

The first is that Saudi is rich. In fact they started dipping into their petro dollars nearly two years ago. King Salman (the new King) instituted a property tax. Most monarchy's don't have a tax system. But due to a need of cash and a collapsing infrastructure (dilapidated buildings owned by the extended royal family) King Salman instituted a property tax of roughly 4%.

What does this mean? With any luck it could mean that Saudi and OPEC cannot continue with the overproduction of oil as a foil to Shale Gas. Time will tell...

Gazoo,

 

There are numerous threads on the oil price and budget debacles in older threads in this forum. The current Saudi machinations are ever changing budgetary and financial problems and targets as the oil ministers within OPEC, Russia, Venezuela and other countries agree or disagree on oil production quotas. The oil glut marginalized some oil production in the US and elsewhere. As I mentioned elsewhere, I find the website www.oilprice.com is a useful resource in following oil's travails. FWIW I also refer to www.opec.org, www.iea.org and www.eia.gov as generic news headlines breaks. But that's me. YMMV.

What Citchlow's Reuters piece did for me was to provide a clearer understanding and overview of the Saud family's evolution after coming to the foreground circa 1932. HTH.