Biden’s Options To Counter OPEC+ Are Limited
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 5:43 pm
Biden’s Options To Counter OPEC+ Are Limited
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/B ... mited.html
- Despite repeated requests from the Biden Administration not to cut oil production, OPEC+ went ahead and did just that.
- The geopolitical rationale behind OPEC+’s move might be more worrying than the output cut itself.
- Besides suspending deliveries of weapons to Saudi Arabia, there’s little that the U.S. can do to raise the pressure on the Kingdom.
Oct 08, 2022 - This week, OPEC+ made a decision unprecedented in its history and the history of OPEC. The extended cartel approved production cuts of 2 million bpd at a time of steady demand, tight supply, and runway inflation in the world’s biggest economies. More significantly, perhaps, OPEC+ made this decision despite Washington’s numerous attempts to change the mind of the cartel leaders, notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Just a day before the OPEC+ meeting, CNN reported that all available human resources in the administration had been mobilized, with the White House “having a spasm and panicking,” per one unnamed official.
Top officials such as Amos Hochstein and Janet Yellen had been tasked with talking the Saudis and the Emiratis out of a production cut. Talking points included a not too thinly veiled threat of reputational and foreign relations damage: “There is great political risk to your reputation and relations with the United States and the west if you move forward.” Yet the Saudis and the Emiratis did just that. They went forward.
Commentators were quick to note the move was a slap in the face of the United States and the collective West. It is the West that needs cheaper oil the most right now as the European Union embargoed Russian crude and fuels and the U.S. Democratic administration needs cheap gasoline ahead of the midterms to have a chance of retaining its party majority in Congress, however slim.
In a symbolic affirmation of a major geopolitical alignment change, the Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, accused Reuters of bad reporting and refused to answer questions from the agency at a news conference after the OPEC+ meeting and pretty much waved off suggestions by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that OPEC+ was siding with Russia and weaponizing oil at a time when the global economy needed it.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/B ... mited.html
- Despite repeated requests from the Biden Administration not to cut oil production, OPEC+ went ahead and did just that.
- The geopolitical rationale behind OPEC+’s move might be more worrying than the output cut itself.
- Besides suspending deliveries of weapons to Saudi Arabia, there’s little that the U.S. can do to raise the pressure on the Kingdom.
Oct 08, 2022 - This week, OPEC+ made a decision unprecedented in its history and the history of OPEC. The extended cartel approved production cuts of 2 million bpd at a time of steady demand, tight supply, and runway inflation in the world’s biggest economies. More significantly, perhaps, OPEC+ made this decision despite Washington’s numerous attempts to change the mind of the cartel leaders, notably Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Just a day before the OPEC+ meeting, CNN reported that all available human resources in the administration had been mobilized, with the White House “having a spasm and panicking,” per one unnamed official.
Top officials such as Amos Hochstein and Janet Yellen had been tasked with talking the Saudis and the Emiratis out of a production cut. Talking points included a not too thinly veiled threat of reputational and foreign relations damage: “There is great political risk to your reputation and relations with the United States and the west if you move forward.” Yet the Saudis and the Emiratis did just that. They went forward.
Commentators were quick to note the move was a slap in the face of the United States and the collective West. It is the West that needs cheaper oil the most right now as the European Union embargoed Russian crude and fuels and the U.S. Democratic administration needs cheap gasoline ahead of the midterms to have a chance of retaining its party majority in Congress, however slim.
In a symbolic affirmation of a major geopolitical alignment change, the Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, accused Reuters of bad reporting and refused to answer questions from the agency at a news conference after the OPEC+ meeting and pretty much waved off suggestions by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that OPEC+ was siding with Russia and weaponizing oil at a time when the global economy needed it.