China and India vie for Russian oil at issue in US Bankruptcy Court

Telegraph | Money | India and China battle over Russian oil :
"... a former Russian prime minister has hit out at the destruction of Yukos and the climate of uncertainty that it has brought to the economic outlook in Russia. Yegor Gaidar, who was briefly prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and is a noted free-market economist, told a group of institutional investors in London last week: 'What they are doing could be explained rationally only if the goal was to stop economic growth."

The Russian government's precipitate seizure of Yukos, a major Russian oil producer has set off shockwaves around the world involving a petition for reorganization filed in US Bankruptcy Court by Yukos and a dispute between Yukos and Deutsche Bank which may go to international arbitration. Yet, such is the hunger for oil that even these legal entanglements have not prevented India and China offering bids to the Russian government oil company for a substantial share of its million barrels a day.

All in all, it appears the outlook is bullish for oil, although I do have one correspondent who feels that a major world depression to rival that of the 1930s is coming and would radically depress world demand for oil. Count me with the bulls for now.