QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are a personal friend of the royal family of Qatar. Would you care to share your inside knowledge of Qatar leaving OPEC?
KR
ANSWER: Just for the record, I was a friend of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed al-Thani who was a member of the Royal family of Qatar. We were probably the two biggest collectors of ancient coins in the world. He was always trying to buy me out, with a smile of course. Yes, he came to our office to see me with the royal bodyguards and the whole bit a few weeks before he died in 2014 and yes, I visited him at his home in London. Because of our friendship, he offered Qatar as the headquarters for our operation, but could not grant me a citizenship because I was Christian. We set up our office instead of in Abu Dhabi.
That said, Qatar is the richest nation on Earth on a Per capita basis. Abu Nakhlah Airport (Arabic:مطار أبو نخلة) in Qatar houses both the Qatari Air Force and U.S. Air Force as well as other Coalition personnel. It is also the headquarters of United States Central Command. Its conflict between other member states when the government supported Iran created a real feud. Even their airline was banned from other airports. That is a very complex issue that would take more than a blog to explain.
I have also written that the US desire to invade Syria had NOTHING to do with gassing people. It was simply about to get a gas pipeline through Syria to Europe in order to compete with Russia. The US wanted to choke off Russia from serving Europe. That is why Putin went into Syria and this is the real story behind the pretended human right nonsense. There are plenty of human rights issues in Africa we do nothing about because there is no profit or political gain. North Korea really had weapons of mass destruction yet we did not invade them as we did in Iraq because there was no profit to be had. Just follow the money. Those in power BELIEVE they can bullshit the people ALL THE TIME because the press is in their back pocket and will never report the truth. Mainstream media is no different than Pravda (truth) of Communist USSR.
Now the small, gas-rich state of Qatar state said that it will leave the oil cartel on January 1st, 2019 after nearly 60 years. Why? (1) there is the political conflict with its neighbors. (2) The country’s state oil company, Qatar Petroleum, said its withdrawal decision reflects “Qatar’s desire to focus its efforts on plans to develop and increase its natural gas production.”
Qatar has been under a diplomatic and economic embargo by its Arab neighbors, including OPEC members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for the past 18 months. In response, Qatar has actually been increasing its gas production in retaliation for gas, not oil, is its primary source of revenue – hence the gas pipeline proposal through Syria. In reality, OPEC is concerned about oil – not natural gas. It is only logical that Qatar would withdraw from OPEC based upon its output, but at the same time, there is the diplomatic and economic embargo dispute with other Gulf states. Qatar policy has been to further its position as the world’s leading supplier of gas. Its exports currently account for about 30% of global demand.
