Art imitating life

First you read some harmless headline about a failed suicide attack on a Saudi oil facility (the attack failed, not the suicide so much) - in particular, the Abqaiq oil facility

Then, of course, the stories about a spike in oil prices follows.

The crazy thing is - I was just reading this book called Sleeping With the Devil. It's basically about how we (well, the USA really) is so dependent on oil that it basically has no choice to prop up the Saudi government despite them being xenophobic, hedonistic, supporters of terrorism etc. The book, plus another (See No Evil) were both written by ex-CIA dude Robert Baer. They essentially form the basis for the film, Syriana.

So, I just finished reading the prologue to the book which is a hypothetical, but possible scenario:
A couple of guys, suicide bombers, quite easily stage an attack on the very vulnerable infrastructure of the Saudi oil industry and, in particular - the Abqaiq oil facility.

The economic impact would basically cripple the planet. A "moderate to severe attack on Abqaiq would slow average production there from 6.8 million barrels a day to roughly a million barrels for the first two months." You can watch as oil rises toward $100 and even $150 a barrel.

Environmentally, 1700ppm of hydrogen sulfide would be released into the atmosphere - that's about 85X acceptable levels in the workplace.

It's a bit weird to read a scary hypothetical and then read it in the news the next day.

Yesterday we dodged that bullet by a few 100 yards. And OPEC made a couple of bucks.