Saudi Arabia has announced they may discuss ‘stabilising’ the oil market at next month’s OPEC meeting. They have been feeling the pinch along with other oil-producing countries because of the low oil price. The Kingdom is struggling with weak GDP growth, higher fees and taxes, and an economy that is unable to pay the dues to its migrant workers, who have been left without a job, many months of overdue salary and benefits, and without basic amenities such as insurance coverage, food, shelter and medical facilities, and are unable to leave.
Until recently the Saudis appeared unwilling to compromise but a stable oil price is crucial for the IPO of state-owned Saudi Aramco aimed for 2017/ 2018, which is key to a move to diversify the economy and turn its Public Investment Fund into a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. It’s the brainchild of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the ambitiously aggressive son of the ageing King, who wants to be regarded as a leader in the Arab world.
The Saudi Arabia, 15 Jan 1902 3.45am chart indicates a bleak, undermining two years ahead with a tough-slog, deprived tr Pluto conjunct the Saudi Arabia Saturn; and Solar Arc Neptune square the Capricorn Sun and Jupiter in 18 months and two years’ time, which latter is often associated with a financial bubble bursting. Tr Saturn also from this December till late 2017 is in hard aspect to the Saudi Arabia T Square of Uranus opposition Pluto Neptune in Gemini square Pisces Moon – which looks like a depressed population. There’ll be some ups along the way when tr Uranus squares Jupiter in April and December 2017 and Jan 2018. But it’ll be a long haul until tr Pluto is conjunct the Jupiter in 2020 by which time tr Saturn in Capricorn will be causing a see-saw effect cutting back as Jupiter tries to push ahead. But for sure, it’ll be a different country by then, having ploughed through a tr Pluto conjunction to its’ three Capricorn planets.
The 23 Sept 1932 country chart is also showing major strains through 2016 to 2018 with tr Uranus square the Saturn in Capricorn opposition Pluto and conjunct Uranus (for a Uranus return); with a deflating tr Saturn square tr Neptune in hard aspect to its Jupiter this year till Jan 2017. If anything that chart will take longer to emerge from the present disruptive upheavals which could last till 2023.
Mohammed bin Salman, 31 Aug 1985, who hasn’t been covering himself with glory with his military forays into the Yemen and Syria, looks agitated with plans not progressing successfully in 2017/18 and will face his greatest pressures come 2020.
The West’s interest in Saudi Arabia’s future isn’t just about oil, since the US fracking industry is holding up well, but in the fundamentalist form of Islam which it has exported round the world and a strong suspicion of its funding of terrorism. Back in the day when Saudi Arabia got under way, the local tribal leader bin Saud did a deal with a local religious leader al-Wahhab which tied the protection and prosperity of both into a pact which survives to this day. Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia is responsible for women being stuck in burqas and forbidden from driving, leaving the country without their husband’s permission etc etc etc.
Al-Wahhab was born in 1703 when there was a triple conjunction of Saturn Jupiter Neptune in Aries trine Pluto in Leo – so fiery, formidably ambitious as well as filled with dreams of spiritual power and clearly the ability to fulfil them. The deal was done in 1744 when Pluto was in Scorpio trine Neptune in Cancer and the Node was reversing into Pisces. With no date it’s impossible to say whether the ties will be loosened soon, though there has been significant pressure on the relationship deal, really since the triple conjunction in Capricorn in the late 19809s/early 1990s; with the tr Uranus square tr Pluto more recently adding more pressure. If the oil money runs out there certainly won’t be the state funds available to send proselytyzing imams into the West and the funding of religious schools etc.