Oil prices rose Nov. 19 after suggestions from the Riyadh OPEC summit that member nations are considering ditching the dollar. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [2] called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper." Venezuela's Hugo Chavez [3] added: "The dollar is in free fall, everyone should be worried about it. The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the dollar — it’s the fall of the American empire." That led to a reaction from Saudi Arabia [4]. "OPEC shouldn’t be used as a political organization," Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at the event's closing press conference. "Oil should be a tool for development and not a tool for conflicts." (London Times [5], NYT [6], Nov. 19)
Note that Iran is already switching [7] from the dollar to the euro for oil sales.
See our last post on the global struggle for control of oil [8].
