From Australian-Shares.com/forums Sparty’s Blog

For the first time in 36 years, Iran will assume the rotating presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It takes effect next year. The appointment was announced Thursday at the start of this week’s OPEC meeting in Vienna.

Iran’s oil ministry’s official website, SHANA, announced that Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi will become the elected president of the 12-member oil cartel. Iran is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and was unanimously elected during the 157th session of OPEC’s ministerial meeting.

OPEC, which provides 35 percent of global oil demand, also reached an agreement on its oil production target. The cartel said Thursday it would make “no changes” to its official oil production target of 24.84 million barrels a day.

OPEC comprises Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Venezuela.

For those of you old enough to remember the OPEC Arab Oil Embargo where we had pictures of men dancing around fires with automatic rifles and a sudden and nasty shift in the world’s economy perhaps the news above will send a shudder down your spines. Iran would have to be one of the world’s most extreme states.

For Iran to gain the presidency of OPEC and thus be able to strongly influence the direction of supply and price should, I think,  cause some disquiet amongst those dependent on oil imports.

So why post this on a GOLD blog… well in times of great uncertainty GOLD performs well and as expensive oil will not be at all helpful to the US economy we may see an uplift in the amount of “Quantitative Easing” (printing money) that will set gold on fire.

It could also be a great time to stock up on oil companies that are currently producing. Here in Australia our junior oils have been down a fair bit and I expect them to start to rise in the near future. Australian-Shares.com allows you to search for OIL companies listed on our ASX.

Some to watch closely are IMO are ASX Codes: AWE , MPO, HZN, TAP, ROC, and at the more speculative end AOK, NDO, OEL, and about to drill OBL, LKO, CTP. The last three are drilling company makers.

Drawing a longer bow, you may also look at what will happen to oil supplies if OPEC sustains a supply imbalance that results in some of the newer alternative methods of oil production coming on-stream. The leading technology in this area will be  UCG-GTL (underground coal gasification – gas to liquids) where one ton of coal can be burnt underground to produce syngas that can be converted to 1.7 barrels of oil for around $28 to $35 AUD. If this were to occur then having LNC a proven UCG-GTL play and CTP who have around a trillion tons of UCG suitable coal would present a remarkable opportunity.

There would probably also be a re-focusing on the transition to an electron-economy where the various Rare Earth Elements, Lithium, Lead , Copper and Cobalt may also spring into life.

Disclaimer: I hold STO, WPL,  AWE, MPO, OBL, LKO and CTP for their oil production and potential. GXY Australia’s only ASX listed Lithium producer, LNC and CTP for their UCG-GTL prospects and LYC , the world’s first new supplier of Refined Rare Earths in 2011, some years ahead of the rest.