To be precise, the United Group stabbed the British three times on the oil issue, instantly making the British's control of European crude oil pricing power come to naught.

The first was the great discovery of Union Oil, where the oil found in Algeria and Libya was closer and better quality than the British-controlled Iranian oil, and it was said to have larger reserves – in fact, Iran had much more reserves, but the British had not yet discovered them.

Among the major European powers, Russia originally had oil, but this is not the mainstream, the real mainstream is three stocks - one Iranian oil, one Romanian oil (controlled by British capital), and one shareholder Indian Petroleum (the crude oil of the Dutch East Indies is developed by Shell, but Shell is a joint venture between Britain and the Netherlands), the supply of these three oils is not too large, adding up to less than 15 million tons, but it is enough to meet the needs of Europe.

To make matters worse, now that France and Italy have discovered oil in their colonies, this means that the hopes of Britain through the oil industry to the necks of the fleets of the two countries have been disappointed - to be enemies of Italy and France at the same time in the Mediterranean? No matter how arrogant the British are, they don't dare to lay it out like this. Therefore, we can only watch the oil colonies of Italy and France close at hand, while Iranian oil needs to go around most of Europe to the mainland of Great Britain, and the oil supply lines of Great Britain (East India oil fields in the Far East, Iranian oil fields in the Middle East) are in turn at risk of being cut off by Italy and France.

The second knife was the oil trade of the United Bloc with the USSR. Because the Soviet Union refused to return the arrears of Tsarist Russia, the relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union continued to be frozen - MacDonald only established diplomatic relations, but he could not control economic exchanges, and if the United Group continued to play the pole, Baku crude oil could be continuously supplied to Europe, and even worse, the United Group also took advantage of the opportunity of two purchases - one to purchase oil from the Soviet Union, and the other to purchase industrial products from other countries (mainly Germany) in exchange for oil, This bypasses Europe's traditional system of settling oil trade in pounds, and is tantamount to a stab in the pound's crumbling status as an international payment currency.

What's more, Contini's foreign trade is settled in US dollars except for the lira, which is hundreds of millions at every turn, and even countries like the Soviet Union can open channels - this makes Wall Street bigwigs very happy, and the Federal Reserve praises Contini, believing that he has greatly promoted the development of US-Italian relations, and even said good things about the United Group's issuance of $100 million in corporate debt for the first time, which is considered a good start in his private name and is a reliable investment variety - when talking to a group of bigwigs, What is the difference between a private name and an official name? This makes the pound even worse.

The third knife is that the United Group announced the principle of "open acquisition at a protective price" after the deployment of long orders in the New York spot market, limiting the minimum price of $1 and the maximum price of $1.25, so that the international oil prices that are currently hovering at a low level immediately began to rise.

If you are willing to be honest 1:1 ratio hedging, no matter how it fluctuates, you will not lose extra money, but people are bad at being smart, oil capitalists believe that with the increase of crude oil in the Soviet Union and the exploitation of oil in North Africa in the future, the supply of crude oil in the future market will greatly exceed consumption, so they bet on short orders in the forward market, and the position is still very large, together with the speculative positions active in the market, the weight has reached more than 400,000 orders - The average price is only $0.91, and of the more than 400,000 orders, the United Group holds 110,000 counterparty orders, which means that it controls a quarter of the opposite position.

As soon as the announcement of the open price of the protective price came out, the price of oil jumped sharply, from 0.91 to 0.97, and then broke through $1 after repeated trade-offs. The long and short sides quickly launched a fierce fight, but the United Group said that it was not a joke, and immediately announced 7 oil reserve bases, each of which is at the level of 10 million barrels, and publicly welcomed oil companies to book supply contracts - 70 million barrels at a purchase price of 1 US dollar, in addition, Contini also said that in the future, he will also consider cooperating with Germany to establish a Sino-European oil storage base, with a scale of at least 200 million barrels, which is also applicable to protective prices, and this bomb woke up the market.

The price rose to $1.03 a week later, as if it wasn't big enough, the Soviet side said that due to internal industrial construction, the export of oil to Europe this year will be controlled within 20 million barrels / year - in fact, this is a good communication between Contini and the Soviet side, after all, North Africa can produce a lot of oil in a few years, and there is really no need for so much Soviet oil, but Comrade Bukharin's favor is not in vain, and Contini signed a coal supply contract on the basis of floating market prices, It was agreed that from 1928 the Soviet Union would supply Italy with 5 million tons of thermal coal or coke a year in lieu of reduced oil exports.

This news made the market feel panicked: they knew that the Soviet Union was expanding the output of Baku oil, and they thought that they would increase the supply, but they did not expect to get the news of reducing the supply, which made the market price rush to $1.09 at the end of February, compared with the price of 0.91, it has risen by 20%, and the margin of the forward spot position is only 5%, countless speculators have exploded, and some people have quickly changed their positions, from bearish to bullish, forming a week-long empty kill.

The whole process was very miserable, the price soared from $1.09 to $1.27, equivalent to an increase of 40%, and the United Group gradually reduced its position after breaking through $1.2, and by mid-March the position was reduced to 60,000 contracts, and when it reached $1.28, it closed another 40,000 contracts in one go - equivalent to 40 million barrels, and pushed the price below 1.23.

Then the United Group joined forces with Wall Street again to reiterate that there would be a sell-off above $1.25, and the market that woke up like a dream reacted......

After this back and forth, the market price rushed to $1.09 at the end of February, compared with the price of 0.91, which has risen by 20%, and the margin of the forward spot position is only 5%.

The whole process was very miserable, the price soared from $1.09 to $1.27, equivalent to an increase of 40%, and the United Group gradually reduced its position after breaking through $1.2, and by mid-March the position was reduced to 60,000 contracts, and when it reached $1.28, it closed another 40,000 contracts in one go - equivalent to 40 million barrels, and pushed the price below 1.23.

Then the United Group joined forces with Wall Street again to reiterate that there would be a sell-off above $1.25, and the market that woke up like a dream reacted......