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Saudi Oil Minister and head of Aramco, Ali al-Naimi, last week in a CSIS conference in Washington describe the global impact that the U.S.A. tight-oil “revolution” will have on the market, plus with Alberta’s heavy oil and so many other new sources from around the globe all coming to market, writes Professor Tom O'Donnell, Phd.

Al-Naimi’s contrasted his central theme: “the enduring relevance of oil,” to the predictions made for many years by the adherents of “peak oil”–a theory that he said had itself “peaked in 2009” and has now been shown to be “utterly incorrect.”

Writes, O'Donnell a university professor and energy analyst, Naimi brought to my mind images of the 1980′s. The 1980′s were the “lost decade” in Latin America. It strikes me that, if he’s right about the trajectory of the global oil sector, the consequences for OPEC’s “price hawk” faction would be sobering.

I can easily imagine Venezuela and Iran falling into veritable black holes, economically and politically, if there is even a moderate replay of the previous “lost decade” with prices dropping significantly below $80/barrel, not to mention $50/barrel, O'Donnell added in his The Global Barrel Blog.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies - CSIS is a a public policy research institution dedicated to analysis and policy impact headquartered in Washington, D.C.

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Bad news for Venezuela and Iran?- Saudi's Al Naimi