¿What is the next for the american dollar? We remember the OPEC MEETING from the last november, when Iran and Venezuela, try to include american dollar in OPEC talks. This time, Saudi Arabia block any kind of talk about the dollar, but the game is not over yet.

During 2007, the Bankers in Iran have complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult to receive Iranian-held money denominated in dollars from European bank accounts. They said that this was because of United States pressure on European banking giants not to allow dollar-denominated funds to be sent into, or out of, the Islamic republic government of Iran.

Iran and Venezuela, are looking to reduce its dependence on the dollar, want to reduce this kind of vulnerability. Foreign income sources and oil revenues should be calculated in euros and want to receive them in euros in order to put an end to its dependence on the dollar.

For Iran, the 60 percent of oil sales are already being carried out in dollars in another hand for Venezuela represents around 90 percent of oil sales.

This week Iran has stopped selling its oil for american dollars, the Iran’s oil minister, Gholamhossein Nozari say: “In line with a policy of selling crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the sale of our country’s oil in U.S. dollars has been completely eliminated,” and, He also said “the dollar is no longer a reliable currency.”

If we remember the last week, Russia through Gazprom is mulling over the possibility to sell natural gas and crude oil for rubbles. Gazprom has 118,367.564 million rubbles in stock capital split into 23,673,512.9 thousand common stocks, 5 rubbles par each.

¿The Dollar has problems? The United States is the hegemony, yet. But its currency is experimenting a real globalization, because now, the dollar needs to fight with the yuan, the euro, and maybe (soon) the rubble but its main enemy is the same american dollar, the real adversary is the american currency policy. For this reason, The United States needs to improve its foreign and currency policy.

|Manuel Torres Laveaga

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The OPEC oil ministers said the oil market was well-supplied and recent gains were due to speculation and beyond the group’s control. OPEC is scheduled to discuss oil production for the first quarter of 2008 at a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 5.

The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal rejected calls by Iran and Venezuela at the summit to discuss abandoning the U.S. currency for oil sales, saying the kingdom doesn’t want the dollar to “collapse”, however also it showed his potential to generate problems to the United States and their allies.

During OPEC MEETING the oil leaders thought were private talks, Venezuela’s oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel, but the Saudis, the world’s largest oil producers and de facto head of OPEC, vetoed the proposal. The Prince Saud Al-Faisal, warned that even the mere mention to journalists of the fact that leaders were discussing the weak dollar would cause the US currency to plummet ( ¿$US dollar vs €Euro?). The alliance between Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been fortified with several visits of both parts: Chávez Monday arrived at Tehran by fourth time in two years. Iran has been associated with Venezuela in several industrial projects in the South American nation, including the manufacture of automobiles, energy, plastic tractors and products, but could be an interesting bridge/way to traffic with nuclear technology in another hand Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to use the Cartel, like a political weapon versus George Bush´s policy.

Read the Riyadh Declaration. The Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of OPEC

|Manuel Torres Laveaga