Could this lower the price of oil - US/Iranian tax on Saudi oil exports to China and the far east?

One reason crude oil has gone up in price so much is the anticipated future demand for oil from the far east, particularly China. One way to reduce the effect of this would be for the US and Iran to put in place a blockade of all oil tankers trying to pass along the north coast of the pacific ocean from Saudi Arabia to China. Tankers would have to pay a large tax to pass through.


This would increase the effective price of oil that the chinese would have to pay, so causing them to use less of it. This would reduce world consumption of oil, so the price would go down.





Is this something that the Americans or Iranians are considering I wonder?Could this lower the price of oil - US/Iranian tax on Saudi oil exports to China and the far east?
I don't know of any precedent for a third party collecting taxes on commodities. As I understand it the exporter or the importer is the taxing authority under these circumstances. In that light I hope nothing like this is attempted. What you are asking for amounts to an act of war. You would be acting against the exporting nation, the importing nation and the nation in which the tankers are registered. Any interruption on the high seas is not good. Even our Coast Guard and Customs people typically wait to act on smugglers until they are in the territorial waters of the US.





Besides that, I understand the Chinese government subsidizes fuel in China. Communists may not know a lot of things but they know their economy must grow and they know oil lubricates and fuels that economy.





I would like to applaud you though. At least you understand what is going on. Most people think it is a bunch of greedy oil men. FYI Exxon made a 17% profit last year and GOOGLE posted a profit of over 30%. Congress may be grilling the wrong people. That's just a drop of fuel you might like to use on some of your less knowledgeable friends.





Personally I think it is time we started decorating oak trees with radical environmentalists and begin some ';in earnest'; oil exploration. Sorry to all the folks who will have oil rigs spoil their view of costal waters as well as all the increasing number of polar bears. It was in the mid 70s when the last refinery went on like and we have lost some capacity since then due to fires and disasters. We have a lot of oil available for the drilling. Combine that with nuclear generated electricity and we could do a lot for prices in general. The fuel to produce and transport all goods is a significant percentage of the cost of doing business.





Your question is a good one but the concept is less than ideal. As I said, I do applaud you; you understand the problem and are really thinking about it. Keep it up; you may just hit on something no one has yet thought of.





Cheers.Could this lower the price of oil - US/Iranian tax on Saudi oil exports to China and the far east?
I think that might well upset China, which is not a good idea. China has so many people they could easierly afford to lose 100 million people fighting a bloody war. With their ability to knock out satellites long range weapons become useless (the weapons rely on GPS). Ocourse the Arabs may just decide not to sell us their oil, which would cause a bit of a problem.





Secondly and more importantly it goes against the idea of free trade.
Our fuel prices would go down if we stopped exporting our own oil and buying someone elses.





All oil from the north sea rigs is exported via an under sea pipe to stanlow then another pipe accross the country. All our oil is sold to The States then we buy oil back which comes in tankers to stanlow.





Stop Exporting British Oil only to buy it back
I hope not. Whatever difficulties we face we have no right to deprive people from having the things we enjoy and value. How would we like it if we were Chinese?

la mer