As Russia Arms It Baltic Fleet, Oil Faces Pressure

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 27, 5:00PM EDT · Published Aug 17, 6:05AM EDT

95129c So far there has been little evidence that the "war" between Georgia and Russia has done anything of substance to increase the price of oil.

At the beginning of the conflict, there was a concern that the movement of oil through Russia might be impeded.

But, now Russia is planning to put nuclear war heads on some of the weapons of its Baltic Fleet, upping its bet that it can menace the region and control its political fate. For the economy and oil prices, the effect may be immediate.

According to TheTimes, "The warnings came 24 hours after Russia told Poland that it could face a nuclear strike for agreeing to let the United States station components of the missile defense shield on its soil."

The Baltic Fleet is relatively near norther Germany, Scandinavia, and not far from the North Sea. If oil does not move up on the news, crude traders lack the sense God gave them.

Russia is pushing most of its chips into the center of the table. Oil is an important part of the pot. On its own, Russia has a huge amount of crude reserves of its own. It could begin to bargain with the West using that as well.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.