When Iraq invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, the price of oil more than doubled from the mid-teens to above US$40 a barrel, reawakening fears of a new oil crisis suffered by world consumers in the 1970s.
When the US attacked Venezuela, the owner of the world’s largest oil reserves, over the last weekend, the market’s reaction was vastly different. On Jan 5, two days after Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro was carted away by US soldiers, oil prices held steady at US$60 per barrel. Subsequently, with US asserting that it will “indefinitely manage” the sale of Venezuelan oil, prices dipped lower, suggesting that such seemingly drastic moves have yet to spook the black gold in the same way.
