Relying on these Oil Analysts (OA) does not necessarily mean you will be handed straightforward answers, but perhaps with some luck you will see a ray of light.

Saudi Arabia is saying that they are raising oil production to 12 million barrels a day. That’s highly debatable. Russia is saying that they can raise oil production to 13 million barrels a day. OA1 cuts to the chase: “Both are bluffing. Prices are still rising. That means no one believes them.”

OA2 kicks in, reminding that, “oil price is holding because of the 1.5 million barrels a day pulled off the market by a strike in Kuwait of about 10,000 workers. That cut their 3 million barrels a day production in half. Now they are going back to work. Yet the price of oil is still rising.”

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I had explained before how the oil price was holding over $40.00 a barrel even with concerted Washington pressure over Saudi Arabia to keep it down. Then, OA3 had told me: “that’s because oil demand and supply is tightening.”

But then OA4 came up with a totally different outlook; the whole thing was about 'The Big Long', upon which I based my prediction of $45/$50 per barrel when I was in Tehran in November 2011 and the price was approaching $100 a barrel. The Saudis have been supporting the price and while they have plenty of capital to do so at high prices, storage is finite. Aligning with this, OA4 added that: “the market is about to crash, and is only being supported by the financial positions of the Saudi/GCC support operation, now unwinding."

OA5, predictably, could not agree that the Saudis are supporting the market and about to let it collapse. He elaborated on how “hard it is to predict day-to-day prices. The only way you can know what is happening is to watch by satellite or surface observation the tankers coming out of each exporter, assume they are full, check their names to look up their capacity, and then add up what is leaving each exporter. What they say otherwise means nothing. There are services that do this that cost about $300,000 a year.”

OA6 kicked in with some perspective, explaining what happened in the middle of 2014: “The oil price started to crash with no visible increase in production. The deduction had to be that the surplus in the Gulf - which was the only place where there was a surplus - was being dumped in the market by the Gulf States, under orders from Washington. And this fit geopolitically with the uprising in Kiev as a replay of Afghanistan.”

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If there is a consensus amongst most OAs, it is that Saudi Arabia is hurting. OA7 says he’s been “watching the markets, and a lot of this static comes from Iran trying to break into the market. The Gulf States are trying to prevent that as much as possible and trying to cut Iran's throat.

However, I do not see overall that the situation is deteriorating. Such a severe drop in price restrains production. The amount of excess was not more than about 5 percent of the market; not 20 per cent, as in 1985. It has to be tight now based on macro-logic and that is why a famous Goldman Sachs former trader who picked the collapse is not massively buying.”

Still confused? You should be. Because now another variable kicks in – the rise of US gasoline demand. OA8 has a fine take on the matter:“I was expecting this in the second quarter, not now. We should be over fifty to sixty dollars a barrel then. Fundamentals always prevail in the end.”

The $2 trillion game

So a credible scenario seems to be a world not exactly awash in crude oil, and with the price of a barrel going up soon. And right at this juncture we find China’s CNPC making a play to become a major shareholder of Rosneft – Russia’s top oil producer, which plans to sell 19.5 percent of its shares.

Predictably, US analysts don’t seem to understand why Rosneft may become a top Russia/Chinese-owned corporation. This has nothing to do with selling oil assets when prices are down; Rosneft shares are doing fine, by the way. It’s about the energy/financial consolidation of the Russia-China strategic partnership – from Pipelineistan (those massive, $300 billion gas deals clinched in 2014) to the close connection of Moscow and Shanghai stock exchanges. Translation: all these sophisticated moves further bypass the US dollar.

Oil, in this complex equation, is just one component. For instance, the Ministry of Economic Development in Moscow works with two basic hypotheses: best case at $40 a barrel, and worst case at $25 a barrel. It is duly preparing for both.

And now comes what could be a potential game-changer: the House of Saud’s “vision” for a post-oil economy.

These are the basics, as announced by Warrior Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 30, the conductor of the – illegal - war on Yemen that is overflowing with “collateral damage”. Saudi Arabia’s power stems from its possession of Mecca and Medina, and geostrategic “Arab and Muslim depth”; it’s central to global trade, with 30 percent passing through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; and the future lies in the creation of a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, coming from the sale of 5 percent of shares in Aramco, the number one oil company on the planet.

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Riyadh, we got a problem. Assuming that Aramco’s partial IPO will yield that astonishing $2 trillion, and these funds are invested all across the West, Saudi Arabia could collect around $100 billion a year. Not much; in fact, only 1/6 of Saudi Arabia’s GDP in 2015 ($653 billion, of which 70 percent come from oil exports). In a nutshell: this plan will not deliver Saudi Arabia a viable post-oil economy.

As if this was not enough, the oil hacienda is currently invested in two expensive wars – in Yemen (directly) and Syria (indirectly). Crucial: the Warrior Prince de facto conducts both. Moreover, the House of Saud will continue to buy spectacularly costly weapons from the usual suspects - the US, UK and France - like there’s no tomorrow.

Back to our OAs. OA8 says that the Saudis under the Warrior Prince made a major mistake: “They have now antagonized the Russians and the Americans. Brennan wants their blood no matter what he says as he thinks of them as terrorists. Also, he believes that they have nuclear tipped missiles from Pakistan. The US cannot reconcile themselves to this.”

Moscow, on the other hand, wants friendly relations with Riyadh, but there’s a perception Russia was betrayed at Doha (cutting oil production was a done deal until the Warrior Prince scuttled it on the very day of the signing.)

Which brings us to OA9: “The self-inflicted wound of cutting the oil price by the Saudis for market share is foolish. The time now is to conserve oil and refrain from selling it, awaiting the tripling of the Chinese economy with the Belt and Road plan. Demand in five or ten years would be massive and oil will be then near $200 a barrel.”

So, in the end, our oil thriller will be all about China; Beijing will need to buy all the energy it needs to pursue the completion of the New Silk Roads. Meanwhile, the House of Saud faces a stark choice. Its “post-oil economy” plan will fail, as others before failed. The Warrior Prince must decide which of the superpowers to ally with. If he thinks he can pull it off all by himself, there’s a cab driver gig waiting for him in London. If he can make it to Heathrow in one piece.

The coincidence was unfortunate but telling. The EU’s silence on the historical Armenian issue is symptomatic of its muted stance on a range of contemporary concerns about repression under the Erdogan government.

Merkel and Tusk lauded Turkey for its part in managing the refugee deal with the EU, whereby mainly Syrian migrants arriving in Greece are shipped back to Turkey for “processing”. But the fact that Merkel and Tusk made no reference to the weekend’s official commemoration of the Armenian genocide and instead sought to bestow praise on Turkey – praise that many doubt is merited – will be seen as further proof the EU is a pathetic pushover.

Turkey denies its role in exterminating 1.5 million of its compatriots nearly a century ago was an act of genocide.

With this fawning by the EU is it any wonder wily Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is unrelenting in his accretion of repressive powers?

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, may be viewed as the titular head of EU, while German Chancellor, Angela Merkel is the most powerful European national leader. Yet these two figures appear to be mere play things in the hands of Erdogan and his ruling AK Party.

This year is the 101-year anniversary of the mass extermination of the Armenian minority that began in 1915 during the final days of the Ottoman Empire, and continued until the early 1920s under the modern state of Turkey. Remembrance Day is officially held each year on April 24.

For many historians across the world, the persecution of the Armenians by Turkish military rulers is an incontrovertible case of “genocide” when millions of the ethnic minority were dispossessed, starved and forced into “death marches”. Countless executions were also carried out by Turkish state forces.

Turkish authorities do not deny that mass killings occurred but to this day they claim that no genocide took place. They claim“the events” were part of a civil war that stemmed from the First World War also raging at the time.

Russia, France, Italy and Sweden are among 29 countries that formally designate the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.

The governments of the United States, Britain and Germany have not given formal recognition of the genocide, largely out of strategic concerns to not antagonize Turkey – a key NATO ally.

Barack Obama promised in his presidential election bid in 2008 that he would give official US recognition of the Armenian genocide. But he reneged on that promise, and declines to use the G-word.

View image on Twitter Follow RT ✔‎@RT_com Dutch journalist held in #Turkey over #Erdogan tweets says her#Amsterdam flat was burgled http://on.rt.com/7b1b 10:20 PM - 25 Apr 2016 7171 Retweets 5555 likes

More recently, however, it is the EU’s refugee crisis that has added to Germany’s reluctance to incur Ankara’s ire. Earlier this year, the German parliament postponed voting on a resolution to declare the Armenian genocide in a move viewed as avoiding a diplomatic clash with Turkey and thus jeopardizing the refugee deal.

Erdogan’s government has vociferously challenged countries that have officially recognized the Armenian genocide. When France declared recognition in 2011, there was a major diplomatic spat between Ankara and Paris.

Last year, Pope Francis was rebuked by Ankara when the pontiff referred to “the first genocide of the 20th Century”.

A paid-for advertisement published in the Wall Street Journal last week explicitly denying the genocide is believed to have been prompted by the Ankara government.

The issue of the Armenian genocide is not a mere historical debate. It is a disturbing hallmark of the Turkish state and its incumbent government that it continues to deny the crime of genocide. Especially since this same state is now pushing harder than ever to join the European Union. Without facing up to its dark past, why should the rulers in Ankara feel obliged to be accountable about anything, including current allegations of violations?

What is perhaps even more disturbing is how the EU is willing to appease Ankara to alleviate its refugee problem.

While touring a refugee camp in Turkey at the weekend, Donald Tusk said Ankara was a “model for the world to follow.” This is despite numerous reports by rights groups that the Turkey is not a safe country for refugees.

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There have been credible reports of Turkish military firing live rounds at refugees attempting to cross the border from Syria.

Tusk tried to affect a principled manner when he was quoted as saying: “Our freedoms, including freedom of expression, will not be subject to any political bargaining. This message must be heard by President Erdogan.”

Before his visit to Turkey with Merkel at the weekend, Tusk wrote in an op-ed for Der Spiegel: “We can negotiate money but never our values.”

However, compromising on so-called “European values” is exactly what Merkel and Tusk are doing in order to curry favor with Erdogan’s regime. Already, under Merkel’s leadership, the EU is to ply Ankara with some $6.8 billion in financial aid to accommodate nearly three million refugees on its territory. Last month, Ankara demanded an earlier figure of $3.4 billion be doubled – and it was, without hesitation.

That’s because as Erdogan cockily remarked last week: “The European Union needs Turkey more than we need them.” And Erdogan is pressing his advantage to the hilt.

So much so that Erdogan’s AK Party is cracking down mercilessly on the media, not only Turkish but now also on foreign outlets.

At the weekend a Dutch journalist based in Turkey was arrested on allegations that she insulted Erdogan in a recent article.

German newspaper Bild also disclosed that one its photographers was banned from entering Turkey at Istanbul airport, apparently because his name was on a blacklist of international journalists.

The week before that, the managing editor for Russian outlet Sputnik Turkey was also denied entry to the country.

The repression against international media under Erdogan is but the extension of draconian curbs on critical Turkish media. The infringement on free speech is in turn just part of a wider crackdown by the Turkish state that includes military assaults against ethnic Kurds and Armenians.

This weekend, the New York Times reported how the Ankara government is embarking on expropriations of Armenian property in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in a perplexing echo of “demographic engineering” that was a prelude to the genocide a century ago.

Посмотреть изображение в Твиттере Читать RT ✔‎@RT_com German journalist traveling to Turkey-Syria border, detained in Istanbul http://on.rt.com/7ahg 11:31 - 19 апреля 2016 8484 Ретвита 3737 отметок «Нравится»

One of the properties is the historic Armenian church of Surp Giragos. Residents of Diyarbakir fear Erdogan’s government is using “property development” as a cover for a hidden agenda of displacing ethnic minorities, not unlike the forced relocations in 1915.

The New Your Times quotes Turkish historian Taner Akcam as saying: “Solving ethnic and religious strife through demographic engineering is a policy of the Turkish government that goes back well over a century.”

Merkel and Tusk’s talk about standing up for EU “values” in the face of intensifying repression by Erdogan appears to be nothing but worthless platitudes.

Desperate to stem its refugee crisis, the EU is prepared to throw its own proclaimed principles overboard. And indulging Erdogan’s genocide-denying regime is treacherously plumbing the depths of expedience.