US$200 a barrel - who can afford to buy

US$200 a barrel – who can afford to buy

Mar 17, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – Oil at US$200 a pop generates dreams of riches out of this world. Move over Elon Musk. Take a walk, Jack Ma. Mama Mia! Oil at US$200 a head! It’s enough to drive into frenzies of hallucinations. What is the PPP, now in full control of Guyana and all that oil money, going to do? With itself? With Guyanese? If it has showed itself a wastrel with five billion American, then a Ouija board isn’t needed to know how US$10 big ones could disappear. Carnival and Christmas daily. Mash and July 4^th blended sweetly into one.

Calm down everyone. This is serious stuff -oil at US$200 a cask, but it can’t last. Which country could buy as much as before, as needed? Demand destruction. A CNN caption screamed the essence of pain: “A war waged by the world’s wealthiest nation is hitting the wallets of those who can least afford it” (CNN March 13,2026). See what I mean, now? The Americans and Israelis declared war with aerial bombardments and naval assaults. The coalition of the willing and the calculating (all that Middle East oil), fighting one kind of war. Theirs, the only type they know. Iran, all alone and on its own, fighting a different kind of war. While the US-Israel Axis unleashed its fleet of fearsome Tomahawks to scalp the Iranians, the descendants of Xerxes and Artaxerxes unveiled their own brand of fighting against the odds, their new way of waging war. If they can’t be defeated, then take solace in crippling tormentors. Let the pain rain everywhere.

Thus, the Persians, long given to persecution and martyrdom syndromes, announced to an astonished, frightened world, its own sanctions. In Guyanese: ‘knack gat knack bak. Sanction fuh sang-shun.’ This is a reincarnation straight out of Middle East culture, where vengeance is oxygen. Pain for pain. Jesus commanded the world to surrender ‘an eye for an eye’ and replace that with ‘love of enemy’. Nightmares visit him. He may not think of economic warfare, and the bludgeoning power of its tentacles, the piercing bites of its fangs. But that’s what Iran promised the world. All who want to play Mr. Innocent, Dr. Neutral, and Ms. Goody Two Shoes, deal with that baby that’s undisguised cannonball. No baby clothes on that one, US$200 a bottle.

Incidentally, all the PPP greedy who dance on their head in anticipation of oil at US$200 (or anywhere close) and loads of deposits in the National Oil Fund (NUFF), followed by huge withdrawals, I have some sad news for them. At US$200 (or US$150, or even US$125) acute backpain starts to kick in: few can buy. The prosperous in the PPP Gov’t would call that demand slump. The IMF loan department would be overwhelmed with extra business, more than its float can handle. Meantime, the world stops thinking of economic distress, and puts on a new hat. Economic depression. Like a weather system of the same last name, nothing is moving, no one is stirring, since all the discretionary spending and buying power got slammed in the stones by the Persians. Whoever picks a fight with Teheran had better come loaded with more than guns and Star Wars and Fox News to sell the good and bad news. People who live on easy street get too flabby, ‘can’t tek tuh’ much squeezing.

Iranians know sacrifice. In fact, they have come to love it. From 70 years ago and Mossadegh to 2026 and Mojtaba, Iranians have grown accustomed to American pain. Though proxies, naturally. And now that the US and Israel harbour grand plans about taking over the whole country, and running it like Venezuela (and soon enough Cuba), the descendants of Ali decided to take a stand. It may or may not be like Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. Regardless, a trail of tragedy is woven all over. To the Americans, the Iranians are saying: fight your war your way. Get ready for war being fought another way. Iranian civilians battered. Global children punished in return. Must find a Persian poem for that situation. My own suffices: pain begets more pain. People who have a history of self-flagellation (mutilation) can absorb much more pain than normal people.

A closing note to wrap-up. I recall how benevolent Chinese, like Zhou en Lai, used to rail about “bandits” and “international gangsters” and reckless imperialist adventurers. I used to laugh. Wisdom comes late to the dense. Oil approaching US$200 leads to such mental rearranging…

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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GHK Lall, Iran war, oil barrel, oil price

One thought on “US$200 a barrel – who can afford to buy”

BEAK March 17, 2026 at 8:42 am

But if they cannot buy at $200. What will they do when it is $700? How so? Well, remember commodities, including oil, are priced in US fiat dollars, a fiction. When the real price arrives after the coming economic depression based on the relative value of gold, only then will you see the real price.

Second, Iran holding a monopoly (by controlling the Straits of Hormuz) on the relative price of oil will be demanding compensation for all the damages suffered because of the illegal war it suffered, and they will price oil at whatever it may be, apparently about $700.00 a barrel.

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