The curse of oil | Economic Divide

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The curse of oil

Thursday, 14 May 2020 1:18 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 14 May 2020 2:11 AM ]

For nations reliant on oil sales, the combination of the price collapse and the coronavirus pandemic has created new threats of poverty and political instability from Iraq to Venezuela.

For those countries who are now affected by the glut in crude oil around the world, desperate times, call for desperate measures, which for many, mean loans and assistance, which puts them into long term debt, and make a bad situation, worse.

Some nations, like Saudi Arabia, who is coincidently partly to blame for the recent surplus of oil on the market, have promised they will build a future that will move away from the reliance on oil, and seek other forms of sustenance.

With oil, or black gold a commodity that we can ill afford to live without, it seems that a shock to the system, such as a global pandemic can make us realize that other sources of energy and income may be required in the future.

As various nations rush to set contingency plans for just such an occasion, and as alternative sources of energy become cheaper and more efficient, maybe the future will see us coin the term "Green Gold", but until then, the world has to recover from the Covid-19 virus, and assess where it lies in the meantime.