The Price of Oil

Paul: "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." (Dune, Frank Herbert)

Can you remember the last time your world changed.?

I can. It was a Sunday, and I was lying on the couch and watching a
football match.
There was a ticker, in the beginning of the second half.
"Kuwaiti oil hit by terrorist. Extra News after the match."
Being an Oil trader, I watch it with a little more interest than most.
Why did they not say if it was an oil tanker, a pipeline or a refinery.?
A refinery would send the world price up with 10%, even before the start
of trade.
I had bet heavily on the price staying low... because it had for a year.
But I was on a two week holiday, so I waited for the match to end, before
doing anything.
And in less than 30 minutes, the world changed and My world ended.
Now I am not a tech guy, but in lay man terms this is what happened.
When you frack for oil, you pump a liquid down into the layer below the
oil-sand layer. This forces the oil out of the sand and you can pump it up.
It is only used when the oil wells are nearly dry, because the liquid might
contaminate the oil shale.
The terrorist just had a better idea. They captured an old Kuwait
exploration well, away from the eyes of the world.
Used a day to convert it from pumping oil out to pumping something in.
The terrorist did not pump the normal fracking liquid down.
That would have been bad enough, but still clean-able...

Instead They pumped a liquid form of Cobalt-60 down into the oil shale.
What was the result.?
Most of the Kuwait oil shale was contaminated with radioactive Cobalt.
No one could use the oil, because it would spread radioactive.
The news had a picture of a group with a banner
"The Children of Gaia did this: To make the people stop using oil and stop
killing our mother."
All of the oil being pumped up from the Kuwait field would be stopped,
and investigation would ......
Some may think, but cobalt has a half time of 5 years, and then you can
start to pump it up again.
Could you live for 5 years with 90% less money, but with the same
expences.?
The price did jumped about 20% and I lost a lot of money, and I had to
find another job.
Sitting here 6 months later,.... They never figure it out who was the
children of Gaia. My guess is Russian or Chinese spec-ops.
Not America, because that would be to simple.
I remember when I started as an Oil trader thinking everybody need fuel
for their cars....
Now I work in insurance, because everybody needs that. I hope.
But maybe the Iranians are the guys... It is only 100 km away, and they
have a fission program.
Now we come to the most important question:

Do You need insurance.?